Thursday, July 27, 2006

Takin time to smell the...flowers?

So here is the third of my little lambz - Stefen. He was so thoroughly intruiged by my newly-felted flowers for my garden party bag, he had to stop his roaming of the house to check them out!

n.b. - I have found that after a good felting and swirling through the spin cycle - these gorgeous flowers love an evening sitting in a double-walled tumbler or roll of painter's/packing tape (depending on whether they are 10-petalled or 5 petalled flowers respectively) to assist in their ability to hold their curvy-ness.

After the first 30-40 minutes of reminders that it is fine to smell the flowers - not chew or roll on them, Stefen finally settled down for a short summer's nap.
once he settled down for his nap and the pups were tucked away, I was able to plow into my first box from KnitPicks - some lovely Wool of the Andes - to work on a holiday gift - blueberry color - and wool for my entrelac bag I wanna work on...


Oh- it is time for my first TAG!!!

Thanks Janna!

5 Things always in my purse:

- L'Occitane Lavender Hand cream
- Bare Escentuals' Escentual Cinnamon Quickstick (lipstick and liner in one)
- magnetic clip on sunglasses
- Santa Fe Hemp mint lip balm
- my cell

5 things always in my wallet:
* driver's license
* Debit Card
* Borders Rewards Card
* Starbucks rechargable card
* miscellaneous receipts

5 things always in my fridge:
- Simply Limeaid
- bottle of wine - current flavors (white merlot and a malbec)
- various cheeses
- little cups of sugar-free jello and fruit
- cans of La Croix water (usually lime flavored)

5 things always in my closet:
* piles of shoes
* a dress I want to fit into (again...someday - turquoise raw silk)
* some sari silk my mom gave me from when she was in India
* various tees and blouses for work
* knits my grandma made me - cable sweater, lacy scarf, and the Dr Who-esque scarf that was the first thing I knit when she taught me

5 things always in my car:
- St Christopher medallion my folks gave me with my first car
- lots-o-change
- my Lone Star Espresso frequent drinker card (only two more and I get a free coffee buzz)
- a Canada charm my friend Bob gave me
- navajo beads and elephant bell hanging on the rear view mirror

5 things on my desk (at home)

* sharpie marker for labeling cd's
* pens and pencils
* advance screening card I got when I saw Wallace and Gromit - The Curse of the Wererabbit
* html cliffnotes Kim printed for me
* millions of cd's - the 5 in front of me now - Josh Groban 'Closer', Paul Mc Cartney's 'Chaos and Creation in the Backyard', Del Amitri 'Change Everything', 'Big Band Favorites' and Tori Amos' 'Tales of a Librarian'

Thursday, July 20, 2006

What color are YOU? I am....

Hmmm....funny thing - same color as my fave - Tigger..... (thanks enid!)

Your Aura is Orange

You're a bit of a loner, but you're never lonely. You know how to entertain yourself.
Whether you're trying an extreme sport or a new weird food, you always live on the edge.

The purpose of your life: testing limits - both physical and mental... and then telling people about it.

Famous oranges include: Timothy Leary, David Blaine, Tony Hawk, Carey Hart

Careers for you to try: Snowboarder, Circus Performer, Undercover Agent

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Knitters A-NONI-mous

Bwah-hah hah - Ok - so it is only funny to me.
That's what happens after 5hrs, 45 min at the drs office in one day.
No fun...but lots-o-knitting goin on!

Here are the pics of my NONI bag in progress.



Here is the body of the bag - almost done - 14 stripes and working on the bottom of the bag with my new rosewood dpns.




Voila!! The bottom of the bag is done! I love the effect of tying off the last stitches in the center! The rows look really even - not too shabby.






The first petal of many - done!

The first flower done! I increased the center bobble by two rows - I think I will inrease the # of stitches across from 6 to 8 and increase the # of rows by 2 for the pink flower.



Started this at 1pm today sitting in my two dr's office waiting rooms - cranked through all the petals on the needle by 4:30. At least all the waiting time was useful!


More to come as the bag progresses - next - finish the pink flower and quickly knit up a swatch of the cascade 220 with Crystal Palace squiggle worked in to test feltability.

Feltability - is that a real word?

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Yawnnnnnn

Too tired for pictures tonight - but I am jazzed to note that I have completed 10 of the 14 stripes on the Garden Party bag since I started it on Sunday. The stripes are a little off where the round begins - by about 1 or 1.25 stitches - I am thinking I may have to use that point to be where I attach the flowers....maybe have one that goes almost to the bottom point of the front of the bag. Check out the link on my sidebar and tell me what you think. I should be done with stripes by this time tomorrow and will then start on the flowers. I will wait till the weekend to start the ruffle since I need to test the felting power of Squiggle yarn (see the belt from earlier post this week.- btw - people at work were looking for its appearance today..hmmm stylin...I knew it.) I am thinking of doing less of a ruffle at the top and adding in the squiggle for a fun effect. Must. test. feltability.

Hmmmm...maybe I could felt my booga bag that is FINISHED and sitting next to the door to the garage yelling - felt me! every time I walk out to the washer.

Anyhoo - gotta hit the sheets - ttfn

Monday, July 10, 2006

A few of my non-knit creations





A picture book necklace on homemade copper wire wrapped chain and black and white pearls














pins made with microscope slides and copper tape. Top one has wire and bead decoration on one end. The other has stamped sentiment with different coffee mugs layered on top


two family charms. one on left is different photos of my grandmother - who taught me to knit - and pressed flower. the one on the right is of my 'rents on their honeymoon on one side, my sis holding me as a infant on the other (might have been last time we got along so well)


More pendants - frida, art deco, another picture book and pressed flower with silverleaf


two bracelets. one made with blue glass and silver stamped images on both sides. Other one (my personal fave) is handmade paper on one side and one of my favorite neil gaiman images on the other

Hot off the needles...and have you seen my little lambz?


Hot off the needles - it is the new scarf/belt/wall decor item! Made with less than one skein of my nifty Squiggle yarn by Crystal Palace. Color used was Firecracker, needles US15, CO 12, knit till ya can't knit no more, BO.

Here it is artistically arranged in a cool spiral pattern - wouldn't it be cool on a wall? (really...it is a belt and scarf. gonna go wash a blouse so I can wear it tomorrow!)


Here is the close-up. You can see that it is really a warped version of stringy dental floss with fuzzy bits added into it at different points to make life interesting and knitting it just lovely (read sarcasm here).

And here are my little lambz - ok two of the three. Amber is the one on the right. She is the smallest of the crew - 4lbs dripping wet - and the oldest. She is the shepherd of the flock - keeping us all in line. Tigger - aka ratdog - is on the left, and is also the victim of a kind-hearted haircut gone awry. She gets sooo hot in the summer, I decided to shave her down. I do all their grooming myself - who knew that under all that hair was a little rat! Anyhoo - they are great with not touching yarn. or FO's. I love them little lambz!!

Sunday, July 09, 2006

How I spent my 4th of july week!

Well - to prove that I do more than just knit... I did some bowling with my team - lemme tell ya - it was a blast - here I am launching ten pounds of some really hard substance down a slippery wooden lane...and some of the team went sliding down the lane too - my best score? you ask - I think the best score was just shy of the century mark - at 99. Not too bad! And note how good the form is...


And not to confuse anyone, there was some knitting going on too - I am eagerly awaiting the Noni KAL....so I got a 2nd project to work on while I wait for it to begin - I picked up the Garden Party Bag with luscious ruffle...I started it tonight at the Candlelight stitch n b**** gathering and already have 8 of 56 rows done on the body of the bag!!


This is what it should look like when I am done - just swap the colors...my lys did not have enough of the pink, so I swapped colors. And I have to admit, I am toying with the idea of using some of my squiggle yarn on the ruffle...or instead of the ruffle....not sure yet - more to follow...


ok. Mea culpa - So we all know I finished the moebius - here is the final pic of it!

Thursday, July 06, 2006

A sense of loss? FO - what does it really mean?

ok guys - I don't know about anyone else, but here goes.

As I sit here with my unblocked but FINISHED moebius around my shoulders - I am feeling like I lost my best friend...what about you guys. I have been working on this sucker for so long that now it is done, I don't know what to do!

Part of me is saying QUICK - start another project - sigh.... - the other part of me is saying - GO TO BED.

Clapotis is calling my name, or a felted moebius bag....socks...human sized ones...so many options....I will post a pic tomorrow once I have this puppy blocked - it is not as huge as I feared, but a little big for a shrug....hmmm

FO - what does it really mean? finished object? Final obit (for the project)? Fond oh-revoir (ok - so I spelled it wrong...on purpose) - but anyhoo - it is done! and the search for my next mission is ON!!!

Monday, July 03, 2006

Its realllllly late


ok - so everyone was right - this blogging thing sucked me in and it is now 2am, but the blog is completed!!

What's on the needles tonight?

The infamous moebius is almost off the needles at this point! The applied i-cord is 1/2 done as you can see here! I really hope to have this completed by tomorrow night.