Thursday, September 28, 2006

Post 30

I shall not post about Sock Wars right now. I am still alive that's for sure, my assassin's assassin's assassin has me now, and if they are as clever as I am and can figure out blog addresses of those playing, they would be able to find my blog and find out where I'm at.
Saw this on Yarn is My Metier's blog, effing cute!

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Post 29

Quick note before FIMS goes down AGAIN! In the Sock War sagas, I have killed my first victim! The socks were sent off, victim contacted and she is promptly sending me the socks she was working on. I just thought of something, any participant in Sock Wars that is not eliminated in the first wave should watch out for some crazy scoks. I don't know about the skill of my victim, apparently she had just turned her first heel when she got my assassination e-mail, what if she's a crappy or newby knitter? Her victim, soon to me mine will get mismatched skilled socks, ugh! I figured out that my assasin? has a blog (that is just like her e-mail name and she usses blogger), to scoop out her potential as a knitting assasin, I think she's a newbie=slow, and she talked about how much she works=slow. So as long as her killer is slow, and she is slow, and the mail delivering my next vicims sock are fast....agh! my head hurts, I feel like I need a PhD in time-theory or something to figure it all out.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Post 28

I'm feeling much better now. For the last couple of weeks I had the major isolation blues, I tend to get them this time of year and usually enjoy it, it just takes some time to get used to the upcoming weather. It helps that I'm assimilating nicely into a totally normal work enviroment. After a lot of restrospecting I realized my last job really fucked me up in the head, I always knew that but you get a different perspective on it when you work with normal people. So a little recap of the last couple of weeks. Linda had a dye party at her house which has an awesome basement setup for it. I took the greenish yarn I bought at Stitches and decided to play with the color, I was not worried about messing it up, I was going to embrace whatever happened and go with it. I had 20 skeins of Valley Farms yarn, 50/50 wool/alpaca, original color, willow green, 50 grms each for a total of 1000grams. I used 8 tsps of cyan, 8 tsps of yellow and 1/2 tsp of black.
The soaking and original color.
Just in the pot.

Getting alittle color.
Cooking away.
Drying time.
Overall I'm very happy, 15 of the 5 are very uniform in they way they took the color, 5 have mysterious darker patches here and there. I just need to find the perfect pattern, I was hoping to find a heavy detailed cabled cardigan with awesome buttons, wood or leather perhaps. Last week after my first knit class I was a little stressed so I decided to cool-aide dye some lace weight yarn I got from Knitpicks but it arrived too late for the dye party. I totaly cool-aid dying above all others. It has the most instant gratification of all the dye methods. Last weekend was the Celtic Festival in Grant Park. It was nice but it never seems to get any bigger unlike all the other fesivals they have. I had my fill of curry fries and Guinness, shopped around downtown, checked out the local renegad art fest and an unexpected Turkish Festival in Daley Plaza which is where this picture of a woman rug weaving comes from, but blogger sucks right now and won't allow me to post. Blah.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Too Much

Classes started up again today at the art studio place. I have to admit, I was surprised that the beginning knit class is going this session, an art studio is a little odd of a place to learn to knit when there are at least 8 yarn stores that offer classes within 10 miles. At least the pay is good. Also, note to self, add a cap on the number of students, 9 at once is pushing it, as is 3 hours! Ugh. But the pay is good, right?

Sunday, September 10, 2006

A Chicago Thing

There's a sad sort of clanking
From the clock in the hall
And the bells in the steeple too.
And up in the corporate office an absurd little bird
Is popping up to say fuck-you!
Fuck-you! Fuck-you!
Regretfully they tell us

But firmly they compel us
To say goodbye to you.

So long
Farewell
Aufwiedersehn
Goodnight
I hate for you to go and leave this pretty sight

So long
Farewell
Aufwiedersehn
Adeiu
Adeiu Adeiu
To yieu and yieu and yieu

So long
Farewell
Marshall Fields!

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Ode to the Knitters Anon...

I little poem I made with a poetry generator I found. I'm too lazy and it's been to long since I was in school, and dammit I don't feel like trying to be clever right now. I figured what the hell, my friend Cookster her her blog buddy were having a knit poetry contest and I had nothing else to write about tonight, so howsabout a little ass kissing. So there.

Ode to a Knitters Anon...

knitters anonymous The store
sale with better go over the
random winner. 08/31 time
for beginners than combed. I put
them some seaming and I went up seating at
7:08 31 2006 January
2004 May 2005
December
2004 May 2005 September 2006 issue with sock
yarn 2. 2006 Knitalongs
VINTAGE PATTERNS Recent Entries 6 7 Looking
for the most obnoxious post this
K and
front. unveiled:
Unfortunately, Fleece Artist appear to right, earliest
to explain to the left
side of KPPPM in sock
yarn whoredom Leslie Continuing adventures in sock
yarn whoredom Liz //> Archives
September
10, 11 So going to
see
how
done ...

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Problem Solving

This is absolutely not knitting related. Funny little thing about making pizza dough, if you've ever made you have to let it rise right? In a warm spot, yea, well when the A/C is going and it's the end of summer I was stumped, for a minute, then I realize the solution was my cat. Cat? yea, she likes to sit on my laptop, which is usually kept on for most of the time. Solution, remove the cat and replace with one bowl of pizza dough. It worked.

Monday, September 04, 2006

FIMS

No I have not forgotten you, well I have been enjoying my PAID three day weekend, but before that my buddy FIMS, aka Free Internet Mystery Source, was all wonky for awhile there, I minor inconvenience given the nature of the service. When Fims went down I was actually in the middle of a posting, but that got deleted, so don't expect too much this time, but alot of two-week recaps. I had a great weekend, came across some sock yarn where I least expected that holds promise in my search for the perfect sock yarn for vertically challenged legs, aka fat leg syndrome, I have a hard time keeping my socks up! The two balls have been stuffed in my now overflowing yarn stash holder, I beleive the brand is Regia, called stretch. I signed up for Secret Pal 9, so this should fun, it starts in a couple of weeks, I did it last year and had to be saved by an angel when my SP crapped out on me.%$^@*. Decided to take a nice slow day today and made pizza, well not just pizza, homemade pizza, I don't mean frozen and I don't mean from a box. I made homemade dough, with YEAST, my nieghbor and a friend gave me home grown tomatoes and with the parsley and basil from my garden I made pizza sauce that was so effing good. I mean really fucking good. I am so proud of myself, I used the dough hook on my stand mixer, and processed the tomotoes, strand them and reduced them......yum. I placed an order with KnitPicks getting ready for Linda's dye party saturday. Picked up some superwash sock yarn and lacewwight for dying, a lace book, baby booty book and dye. While Linda is all generous and all and already procured the dye, I bought abunch of yarn at Stitches that the color no longer appeals to me. The green is a little weird, the hue is off and looks like crap, so I got a little bottle of emerald green procion dye, mix that with a touch of black and we'll see. Pictures will be posted tp show the results of the experiment. The best thing of all is that my labels came in! A few weeks ago I ordered real labels from NameMaker. I've always wanted labels for the stuff I make, but alwasy hated that printed kind you see in cheesy craft stores. So I splurged alittle and found a place that will actually weave your name in the label, I picked a cream cotton background with black font. The top line say Handmade By and the bottom in a larger cursive font my name. So nice, professional. Oh, I finally got my camel, oooooooh camel, imagine that in a lower pitch than ooooooooh cashmere. A future project is a camel lace skull cap, pattern found at a qiviut booth at stitches, but I wasn't willing to pay 70 bucks for the yarn, a little rich for my blood. Pictures and whatever I forgot to be posted later.