Both Behind and Stuck

I feel like I am behind on everything.  I wanted to get my Etsy shop up, get a good lead on the dishes, watch old stuff on the DVR, and keep this blog up to date.  Well, I have done none of these.  I have an idea what to charge for shipping for Etsy, but no pictures or bubble mailers.  It looks like for every dish I get clean, 2 or 3 more take its place.  The DVR keeps recording and I keep not watching.  As for this blog, I have a whole project that I started and finished without even mentioning wanting to do it.

(Why yes, I did get funny looks from the neighbors taking pictures in the front yard!  It is also difficult to photograph doubled.)

There is it.  It is a Honeycomb Cowl(Ravelry Link).  It took me a bit to get it.  I missed where it said to "slip all stitches with the yarn in back" and I was wondering why it looked so odd.  I might make another cowl with the yarn in front, it was interesting, but not what the picture on the pattern was showing me.

I was hooked. I have already started another one and have a third in mind.  I already have the yarn and everything for the third one.  I want the colors to be a surprise (it will also make it easier in case my idea turns out to be a horrible thing).

I feel like though I am still behind, that I'm starting to claw my way back up.  I know it will take a bit of time, but I am feeling a bit better about everything.

Here is a picture of my project manager coming in from out photo shoot. 

Perfect Time for a Snow Day!

I am a very happy little camper today.  It said it was going to snow a lot, and it did.  Not only do I get to see a ton of snow on the ground again, but I get a snow day from work.  Perfect timing too!  I was supposed to be in super early (for me, 7am is super early) to help with inventory.  Instead I slept until 9:30 and am enjoying the view.  Not sure what all I hope to get done today, but here are some pictures.

Poor kitty! Have some knitting.

Mr. Jag got to go to the vet on Wed morning and have his teeth clean.  While they were in there they discovered that two had holes and a third was so bad the roots were almost showing.  He got those taken out.  They said he woke-up just fine and all that good stuff.  He now gets anti-inflammatory pills and liquid pain medication.  I can't tell if the pain medication tastes bad, makes his tongue numb, or both.

Here is the brave Old-man Kitty!  You can partially see on his left front leg where they had to shave some fur off to give him fluids.  He is going to be 15 come March and has a heart murmur, so they were a bit worried about putting him under.  But like the champ he is everything was fine (not counting his poor teeth)

I tried to get a picture of him wearing it, but he was being a grumpy model.  I told him models that are this hard to work with never get work.  He didn't seem to care.  Right now I'm trying to decide if I want to make it a long scarf or a shorter one.  It has enough length that you can overlap it in the front, which would be fine if it were to be worn with a coat.  I don't know what the person who will get this is looking for though.  I think I'm going to sit on the choice for a little bit before I commit too much to either way.

What is this? Canada?

It has just been way too cold around here for my tastes!  When I was helping a friend move some stuff she brought up here from her parents' place it was about 7°F. The next day(yesterday) it was around 12°F.  Just way too cold for me.  I was even going to bring her bird to her on Tuesday, but I thought it was way too cold for the little feather-poof as well.  My car almost didn't start either.  I was half hoping it wouldn't so I could go back inside and not have to go to work.

Tonight my mom and I ventured forth and made it to knit-night.  As we were walking by we saw a demo was being given.

Arm knitting!  I knew about finger knitting, but nothing about arm knitting!  It looked pretty cool.

In one direction you have the working yarn facing towards your body and facing away in the other.  It was really cool.  She had a few lengths of cowls and scarves with her to show-off the finished product.  I might have to try it out, it looks so nice and soft. 

I am back to working on my double-knit spiral scarf.  I put it down because it was feeling really slow and boring.  Now that we have had time to think about our differences, it is going fast and is fun again.  Everyone was going on and on about how good it is looking so far.

Some of you have probably noticed that I mentioned my awesome idea last year, but nothing has come of it.  I know I said I was going to do one of the writing prompts every week of the year and we are almost at the end of week two.

I've noticed something about this year so far.  It seems like the year to slowly start things.  Not put them off, but ease into them.  I think I'm okay with that being the theme of this year.  It's not that we won't get things done, but we won't rush into anything.

What doesn't this blog have on it?

I got this idea for sandwiches and wanted to share.  I wasn't sure where to put it, so I decided that here wouldn't hurt.
I used to think eggplant was only okay.  I had it the usual way in eggplant parmesan and was never really impressed by it.  It never had a real presence in the dish in my opinion.
The other day I was cutting one up and tried a bit of it raw.  Oh my goodness.  It was so good.  It is lightly sweet and has a nice soft spongy feeling to it.  I thought it would be a perfect replacement for anyone who didn't want to use bread.
I tried something and it didn't work.  Soft things will just get smooshed out as you eat.  You need firm things if you are going to make a sandwich.  If you want to have little finger-food type things, then just cut each slice into quarters and top away.
Some of my ideas for sandwiches are as follows:

• bell pepper(pick your favorite color) and a bit of lemon juice
• cucumber and fennel, just like little tea sandwiches.  These could even be cut-up so they are smaller.
• zucchini and tomato slices with basil

These are just the ones I came-up with in the car.  You could do ham and cheese if you wanted.

Here is a knitted water-bottle cover I made just to make sure this post doesn't go too crazy and to keep this blog legit. (don't take that sentence too seriously)

I don't know why, but it sounds like an awesome idea if I could make a ton of these and have some water-bottle company donate some bottles.  I don't know if these would be something people would need, but I sure do like the idea of it.

2013

Here is a quick list of everything I got done in the year of 2013

Crochet: 2
~Blanket:

Star Blanket

~Hat

Bridgette Beret

Knit: 12
 ~Blanket:

OpArt

~Hats:

Fisherman's Wool Cap

2x2 Spiral Baby Hat

Curly Twirly Hat

That Hat

~Socks:

HiyaHiya Blossom Lace Socks

Jaywalker Socks

~Scarves:

Sashay

Multi-Directional Holiday Scarf

Brioche Scarf

Simple Neck Scarf

Wibbly Wobbly Cable Scarf

Sewing: 1
 ~Hats:

Animal Hood/Hat

Other's Work: 6
~Crochet:

Huggable Monsters: 6





So excited!

So I went to knitting last night thinking it was going to be a regular night.  I was wrong.  Tom has returned!  He was part of that group before I was, but had to stop coming.  He had perfectly good reasons; he was stuck at work, he was out of town...those kinds of things.  It has been a few years since he was able to come!  I'm so glad he did.  I know some people might be afraid that they have become an outsider to the group after so long.  I'm pretty sure he didn't feel that way, especially since everyone who knew him gave him a hug the minute we spotted him.

Now back to the other part of the blog.  This is the day in year past (I know the expression is 'years past' but this blog isn't that old) I spent this day frantically finishing things.  It's my very last chance to get things done to count for this year.
I'm not sure I'm going to be doing that this time.  I have a plan to have a nice relaxing lunch, do some stuff around the house.  Though after saying that, there is no guarantee that at some point today I won't have a part of my brain realize that this really is the last day of this year.  The last day before things will count for next year.  The last chance to make it look like I wasn't slacking all this year.

Here are some more things I did get finished though.

I've started calling this "That Hat" since it popped in my head.  A few people have been really interested in the pattern and stitch pattern.  If I ever did release it as a pattern I thought it would be really cool to hear someone say:

Person 1: "What are you knitting?"

Person 2: "Oh, just That Hat"

Why, yes, I am easily amused.  Why do you ask?

Here is a closer look at the stitch pattern.  It is a 16 row repeat.  I thought of it after a Mon knit-night a while ago.  I saw someone working on a really cool hat pattern.  I watched her and tried to see what she was doing.  I thought I had it down.  I got home and realized that I only had a vague idea of what she was doing.  I made a swatch with all the combinations she might have been using.  I liked all of them.

This is a cute beret.  That is also my lunch in the background.  I'm odd, I love hummus on my salad.

Here is a top view.  It is a fast crochet, even though parts seem like they take forever.  I had started one of these in orange as a sample for work.  It started showing progress so quickly.

I had to do a bit of digging, but the pattern is Bridgette Beret.  This picture shows the color a bit better.

Where I work has some sort of deal with Lion Brand so that we get free supplies for the 101 classes and get to use their patterns.  Odds are that if I mention a pattern that I'm making a sample of for work but can't find the pattern, it is somewhere on the Lion Brand page.

 

I've also been house-sitting a bird.  "His" name is Mercedes (they aren't sure if it is a boy or girl) and loves to make noise.  I was awoken today by a mini concert.  I'm pretty sure he was going through all the songs and sounds he knows.  I even got to hear a wolf whistle and "pretty birdy".  I got a video the other day of him singing all pretty like.

 

(I've not done this before, I hope it works)

 Something new I just learn is that if you play a sound clip of him singing, he will try to sing back to "himself" from the other room.  Too cute.  Silly Twiddle-bird.