Happy Halloween!

Answers; and holy moly!

Woo hoo! First of all, two (2) crochet and knitting authors left comments on my last post!! Holy cwap! Thank you Doris Chan and Amy O'Neill Houck! Must stop abusing exclamation points!!!

Second of all, I did not buy yarn at Loop. I really really really wanted to, but I was good. The yarn diet is still on! They had all that gorgeous Koigu, and GeeYouKnit's pretty hand-dyed yarn (save the variegated red for me, Elizabeth!), and tons of Blue Sky Alpacas, and Malabrigo, and and and... *sigh* (I did buy Doris's new book, two patterns from Blue Sky Alpacas, and two back issues of Vogue Knitting; like I said before, no one said anything about a pattern diet.)

Sahfi actually introduced the French Meet-up to me, and she found it on MeetUp.com. The group is fabulous - people from all walks of life, all levels of fluency, and no one is pretentious or snotty. It's just really a lot of fun. Go to MeetUp.com if you're interested, and join us! The more the merrier.

And I must thank my dear friend Liz for posting that picture of the chocolate chip pie on her blog. I went to Nova's website and followed the link and downloaded the recipe and actually made it yesterday, and WT and my brother and the Banana and I had some and Jebus, that is some good dessert. Especially when it's warm with vanilla ice cream.

Last but not least, we went to church last night (!) to hear the Banana sing in the choir, and I did not get struck by lightning.

Life is good.

I met Doris Chan!

Oh, today was so much darn fun. I went to Loop, one of my favorite stores of all time, and I got to meet crochet guru Doris Chan! Look! There we are together!

She is a totally cool lady, and I bought her latest book, Everyday Crochet, and she autographed it for me. I also met and talked to three really neat ladies, Yvette, Kate, and Mary, and I saw Craig, the owner of Loop, and Elizabeth, one of his esteemed employees who also happens to dye some gorgeous yarn. Doris showed me how to do foundation single crochet, which is when you create your foundation chain and your first row of single crochet at the same time. It is efficient, easy, and it pretty much ensures that your inital chain isn't too tight. I also discovered (or rather, Doris discovered), that I wrap my yarn differently than everyone else. Who knew?

Here's Doris's magic hands showing Craig how to do something (I think it had to do with joining motifs). You can see Craig's Babette there on the table, and yes, it is made out of Kersti. These pictures don't do the colors justice, it is gorgeous.

This here would be Koigu. Lots and lots of Koigu. Be still, my beating heart.

I love Loop, and I love the fiber arts community in our area, and I love Philadelphia, unlike some people I know (Sahfi!).

***

After my fabulous afternoon at Loop, my friend Sahfi met me there and we went and had lunch, then went to a French meet-up. I spent some time in Paris about 10 years ago, and Sahfi lived in Montreal for several years, and we are trying to improve our rusty French. I think it would really help if we had our French meet-up in a bar. My French improves drastically when I'm drunk (at least I think it does). The group is organized by this nice guy named Pascal. He is Quebecois, and I'll be damned if I can understand half of what he says. But he is patient with all of us, and it's a great opportunity to get together with like-minded people and just have a lovely time downtown.

***

So what are you all doing for Halloween? I'm playing hooky from my night classes and taking the Banana trick-or-treating with a friend we met at the pool this summer. It will be fun. She is going to be, in her words, a 'pretty pink princess'. I swear, I don't know where this child came from. When I was a kid, for Halloween, I was (in no particular order) a clown, a firefighter, Wonder Woman (one of those horrid plastic costumes with a mask that didn't allow you to breathe that cost $5 at Woolworth's [remember Woolworth's?]) a ladybug, a black cat, a witch, a fairy, and a Catholic school girl (that last one was post-college when I lived downtown and was single). I haven't dressed up in quite some time. Probably because I generally feel pretty freakish most of the time these days.

***

Have a good week!

Eight Random Things

D'oh! Just noticed that Sharon tagged me for this meme! So here goes...

1. Before I had my daughter, I could only fall asleep lying on my back. During my pregnancy, however, I had high blood pressure, so I had to lie on my left side all the time, especially at the end. So now I can't fall asleep unless I'm on my left side. (I never promised this would be exciting.)
2. I went roller skating at the Echelon Roller Rink in Voorhees, NJ, (RIP, *sniff*) every Saturday morning from the time I was 7 until I was about 12 or 13. I intend to take it up again when I get roller skates.
3. I went to grad school for French because a. my French sucked when I graduated with my BA and b. I was afraid to get a 'real' job.
4. I spent two summers (1992 and 1993) in Ocean City, NJ. Our apartment was a third-floor walk-up, one block from the boardwalk.
5. I have 4 tattoos and intend to get more. If it weren't for my need to get a 'respectable' job, I'd probably get at least one half-sleeve done.
6. I'd also like to dye my hair blue or purple, but again, the whole job issue...
7. I just discovered Scottish Highland Dancing and hope to take lessons within the next year.
8. Growing up, I also assumed I would get married, but I was never one of those girls that planned her dream wedding from the time she was 5 years old. Everybody at my wedding ate chicken because I didn't feel like counting and submitting different meal requests.

So there you go. :o)

***

Dude, I am totally going to see Doris Chan tomorrow at Loop in Philadelphia!! Squee!! And then I'm going to go speak French in the afternoon!! Squee!! This is seriously going to test the old yarn diet though. Apparently, they just got in a big old shipment of Koigu, both Kersti and KPPPM. Must. Resist. The. Yarn.

Will Blogger cooperate today?

Yes it will! I actually have real, honest-to-God photos of things I'm making right now! Who woulda thunk it.

Below we have my eight bajillionth B.A.G.S. Okay, actually it's my fourth, but there will be many more to come. I have a LOT of acrylic yarn in my stash, and my goal is to turn it all into afghans. Good thing I really like to make afghans. This one will probably either go to the Banana's teacher or principal for Christmas. They are both awesome ladies.

Can I tell you how much I love Maie Landra? I mean honestly, get a load of the colors in that scarf below. One of these days, I'm going to save up a couple thousand dollars and buy enough Koigu to make myself a sweater. This is a slow knit, but it's nice and portable, so I can take it to Banana's ballet lessons, which is nice.

And then we have... Frank. I can't really pronounce Calorimetry, so I just call it Frank. Can I be frank with you? This is fugly. I knew that one strand of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Tweed would be too drapy to use, so I held two strands together. Now it's too bulky. And it's weird, because separately the blue and green are really pretty, but together they bore the living daylights out of me. I also should have read how everybody who made this modified it from the original pattern - I would have been far more successful. I'll probably frog this because I can't stand to see good yarn like this go to waste (I love this yarn). On the flip side, I did learn how short rows work, so that is useful info, even if they didn't do the wraps to prevent holes. I will be less afraid to try short rows in the future. Thanks, Frank!

So I got my latest issue of my yoga magazine, with a hot young thing on the front twisting her body into ridiculous poses that open the hips and massage the gut and allow your qi to flow and balance your chakras and release ama from your liver and all that good stuff. But of course the first thing I noticed was her outfit.



Get a load of those awesome leg warmers! And they're crocheted! I immediately emailed the mag, and they were kind enough to get back to me and let me know that the pattern comes from Diana Designs. I googled it, but I'll be damned if I can find it. If you happen to come across it in your travels, would you send me the link? You guys are the best.

Time to go help the Banana get on her leotard and tights and tiara and tutu and bracelets and rings and necklaces. Ballet attire is certainly different from when I took ballet coughhackthirtycoughhack years ago.

Hm.

I was going to upload some pictures tonight, but then I realized two things: one, Blogger is not allowing me to do so, and two, I don't have any pictures of the things I really want to blog about. So that's kind of dumb.

All is quiet here in our little neck of the woods. I got my homework done early for class, which isn't due until Wednesday, for crying out loud. Look at me with the mad study skillz. Dag. WT and the Banana are sleeping soundly in bed. The cats are shredding or barfing on something in a dark corner of the house. All's right with the world.

Work continues on the Chevron Scarf and a crochet border on a community project which must remain secret right now. Ravelry still rocks. I miss my group, though. It's like therapy. However, I will be going to Loop on October 27 to see the one and only crochet guru, Doris Chan. That should be freakin' awesome. After watching Ms. Chan and her magic fingers, I'll be going to French Meet-Up, also in the cit-tay, so I can practice my mad French skillz. I'm all about the mad skillz these days.

I went to Barnes and Noble today and didn't buy a single gosh-darn book or magazine. Wow. My will power these days is off da hook (I am so street). There were a lot of books to choose from too. Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair. Crochet Me. Bag Style. Knit Two Together (or whatever the hell it's called, the one with Tracey Ullman). Lots of good stuff. But I went to get the IK holiday issue, and they didn't have it. Pffft. Ooh, have you seen the Suss Cousin's knitwear book? It's really nice. I'm liking it; it'll definitely be going on the ol' Christmas list.

WT and I will be going to a concert on Sunday. By ourselves. We might even go out to dinner beforehand. By ourselves. I can't remember the last time we went to a concert, and hubby is a musician for chrissake. I'm looking forward to it too, as it's a venue I've never been to before, the Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood, NJ. I've heard good things about it.

Jebus, this post is even more boring than the previous one, isn't it?

I'm going to bed. Maybe next time I'll have pictures. Maybe. ;o)

It's good for you!

And so the purge continues...

Still no photos pour vous, sorry. But that doesn't mean that things aren't happening around here. First, I cast on for the Chevron Scarf from LMKG by Joelle Hoverson - can I tell you how much I love it? Oh sure, everyone in the Milky Way galaxy has made one, but mine's special. It gave me an excuse to buy two skeins of Koigu, for crying out loud! And it's Koigu I've had for a while, so the yarn diet is still going strong.

Speaking of which - it's been two months. Two freakin' months since I bought yarn. Not bad, eh?

One of my projects on the needles is (are?) the Legwarmers, also from LMKG. Because I'm a big old dork, I made one and have not yet made the other because trying to knit 58 stitches in the round on 12" circs is enough to drive a woman to drink (which sometimes is not a bad thing, but I digress). So I was on a Ravelry forum, and someone suggested that I knit it flat and seam it.

Duh.

So that's what I'll be doing. Finishing my scarf and finishing my legwarmers and finishing up a thuper-thecret gift for a friend and stuff.

***

Right, so this post is entitled 'And so the purge continues...', so maybe I should actually discuss that. I told you we cleaned out a closet (OH MY GOD THAT IS SO THRILLING SALLY), and this weekend I cleaned part of my basement and took a whole carload of stuff over and donated it to the thrift store (OH NO YOU DINT GIRLFRIEND [OH YES I DID, BELIEVE IT]). You can actually see my basement floor! And boy, does it need to be cleaned! But I tell ya, it feels good to get rid of crap that we are not using. I've discovered that my environment is either a reflection of or an influence on my state of mind - either way, when my environment is cleaned and organized, so is my brain. So I feel good.

***

I just read over this post, and my GOD is it boring. Sorry about that. If you read it and bother to come back, I promise I'll have pictures or a movie or something for you next time. Oh, is anyone going to go see Doris Chan at Loop? Lemme know...

Thanks for stopping by. ;o)

Well, I guess I did mean it!

Back on August 8th, I posted about motivation and stuff, as it pertains to my life and those around me. Since then, I've done a fair job of keeping up with some of those goals that I set for myself, which is rather surprising in a pleasant way. I'm a big talker and a small do-er. So let's review.

1. I undertook a yarn diet. Monday will be two months without a yarn purchase. Not even to finish a project. Nothing. This is monumental.

2. I said I'd be nicer to WT and the Banana, and more patient with them. This was hard. I know that sounds pretty crappy (like, how hard is it to be nice to your dang family, for crying out loud), but I managed to sort out some stuff that was bubbling around inside of me, and now I think I am far nicer to be around. Basically, WT is the type of guy who says what on his mind, and I'm the kind of girl who stews about things for eons. Not healthy. I'm getting better.

3. I said I'd exercise more and be healthier. Slowly but surely, I'm getting there. I have yet to lose any weight, but I think my diet is better, and I went to the gym 3 times last week, which is pretty gosh darn good for me.

4. I wanted to purge my house of unwanted items. WT cleaned out his closet, and today I took that stuff (one trash bag full) along with 3 more trash bags full of clothes and shoes to our local thrift store. In addition, I donated an old vacuum, an old iron, an old dustbuster, and other sundries. I also recycled a lot of cardboard and paper today. I have reclaimed a closet. Hallelujah! We are going to work on the basement this weekend. Together.

So when I look back at what I've managed to accomplish over the last two months or so, I feel pretty good about myself. It's empowering, and I need to remember this when I start to feel defeated. It's all good.

***

So knitting and crocheting - yeah. I've made some progress on the ripple afghan, but I'm going to run out of some of the colors before I'm finished crocheting the number of repeats that I want. Hmph. Guess I'll go til I run out of those colors, then put it aside until I get some more scraps.

For some reason, I really want to start crocheting amigurumi and dolls and whatnot. I've really become enamoured of them lately. God knows I have eighty gajillion skeins of Caron Simply Soft and myriad other acrylics, but I want to wait until I'm done with Christmas presents before I start the amigurumi.

***WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT - REFERENCES TO ME AND THE HUBBY BUMPIN' UGLIES***

One of the things I love most about my hubby is his ability to compose silly songs on a moment's notice. He's a musician, and majored in English Lit in college, and those two things combined with his sense of humor make for some damn funny little ditties.

As I was cleaning today, I came across a little song he wrote for me:

[cue blues guitar]

Touch your butt
Touch your breast
Pretty soon, I touch de rest!

See your belly
See your nose
De rest of you concealed by clothes!

You make me laugh
You make me jizz
I'm so glad
My wife you is!

Goddamn, that is some good song writin'! Is he talented or what? He's also working on a song about dirt (as a rebuttal to every song ever written and/or performed by Jewel), and a song called 'Runaway Rose', about my former Persian feline pet who 'went to live on a farm'.

Oh yeah. Life is good. :o)