Slap on the wrist

Whupsie, this is supposed to be done by April 1. Here I thought I had lots of time and then the organizer gave a little finger shaking 'naughty, naughty, are you lazy?' post. Better get crackin'.
I'll also put a link under the button in the sidebar so my pal can find said answers easily.

Knitters Treat Exchange Questionnaire

1. What's your favourite type of yarn?
Jaggerspun zephyr. And Fleece Artist.

2. What's your least favourite type of yarn?
Hair of the mo. It's not like I don't like the way mohair looks, I'm just allergic to it.

3. What's the first thing you do when you visit a new yarn shop?
Scope out the lay of the land. Where are the sock/lace/worsted/aran/silky/fluffy yarns kept? And then go squeezing everything. Sometimes I sniff (yarn, silly).

4. What other crafts do you do / would like to do?
Scrapbooking, a little sewing. I have one altered book on the go, but no time or space to work on it.

5. What magazines do you currently subscribe to?
Don't. But I always buy Interweave Knits.

6. Put this type of magazine in order of preference:
Knitting / Crochet / Other Craft / Food / Home / Fashion / Celebrity Gossip / Garden
knitting, other craft, food, home, garden, crochet, fashion, celebrity gossip

7. What items do you like to knit / crochet?
socks, shawls. lace, some mittens, hats etc. I like the challenge of a sweater, but haven't made many because I loathe the sewing up of little bits.

8. Are you allergic to anything?
mohair, pet fur.

9. What do you like to* smell of?
(*This is not a typo. The question is: What do you like to smell of)
citrus fruits. Really. I use all unscented body products because I have somewhat sensitive skin, but I like citrus-y scented soaps and handcreams.

10. What's your favourite way to relax?
bad movie, good snacks, knitting

11. You're stood in front of a Victorian style sweetshop, an Italian cafe, an old fashioned bakery and a dainty tea room. Where do you go first?
overload... can't decide... must choose... sweetshop.

12. What do you come out with?
chocolate

13. Where do you go next?
bakery. I come out with the world's largest cherry danish

14. Any other words of wisdom for your pal?
I'm easy to please - I just like surprises.

candy socks

This past weekend I broke out the deee-lishous yarn sent to me by Nicole for the Knit Sock Kit Swap. As I was knitting it, I was salivating, because the colours were particularly yummy looking. It would go from pink peppermints, to milk chocolate, to lemony yellow and back to milk chocolate... This is Regia Canadian Color, possibly in the Montreal colour (4730, anyone?)

drool, drool. wouldja look at that yarn!

As you can see, I made the same old mistake that so many have made before me. You'd think I'd know better but if you look close up, you can see that I was trying to do the fabulous cablenet pattern from the Fall 2006 Knitty. I was kind of hoping that the purled background stitches would recede enough that the cables would still pop, even though each row is a different colour. Not really. (Silly Valerie.) It's clear that some sort of cable pattern is there, but the genius in this pattern is obsured. (Really, to see some really awesome socks, click on the link for cablenet. Yowzah.)

don't look too close, I think some of these cables are miscrossed

Anyhow, I think I'll probably rip this out and make the cablenet socks in a yarn that does the pattern justice. Incidentally, my reluctance to swatch bit me on the butt with these socks. I know that I have a really loosey-goosey gauge, I know that 72 stitches cast on to 2mm needles for me is wayyy bigger around than I need for my foot (I can get away with 54-60, depending on the yarn), yet, like a fool, I just followed along. Even if I kept this yarn, I'd have to start again with the smallest size anyhow. Just as well.

But now I'm in love with these Snicket socks. And also these Lombard Street Socks. Those patterns will work in self-striping, won't they? Ha.

Mutato-berry

This is really neither here nor there, but the other day we bought some strawberries and there was this huge one in the package that looks like maybe two or three berries fused together into one huge mutated strawberry; like maybe I should be afraid to eat it because it's not even a strawberry anymore but some fairytale frankenberry come to life, full of growth hormones and pesticides and who knows what else.

mutato-berry. included for scale: nickel, regular strawberry.
click on the picture to see it in close-up macro glory.

But who am I kidding? We all know that Richard and I will fight to the death over who gets to eat this enormous product of the evil international corporate genetic patenting era. After all, it's the big one.

Fuzzy! Purple!

On Saturday, Richard and I went downtown and had some delicious sushi (Thanks Dave and Sharon!) for my birthday. Then, because it was really nice weather, we toodled around town, visiting MEC, the Loop, and Junk and Foibles.
We were mostly window shopping and scooting around looking for interesting things. When we got home, I was really feeling crafty, so I whipped up some notebook covers from a thrifted sweater and some thrifted/traded fabric.

fronts with cute little button and ribbon closures. oooh fuzzy and purple

backs. the small one has a cafe au lait guerrilla applique (yes, this is my technique! make it up as I go! the secret is out)

insides. the big one is a thrifted bedsheet, with a blank spiral bound notebook.
the small one is coffee print, received in a swap with Sarah, and a lined notebook.

from the side. augh. still having colour problems.

Whipup's whiplash contest this month is for a tutorial, so if I have a sunny and inspired day this weekend, I think I will do another couple of these and try my hand at posting a tutorial.

Playing

I was just trying to figure out why I feel like I never have the time to do anything interesting these days, and I realized that with the new job, the old job, and the private tutoring I'm working close to 60 hours a week... no wonder I'm tired! (And I know that there are lots of people who work that much, or who work more. I'm just saying that for me, that's alot.) Part of the problem is also that Richard rented a video game last week that I spent quite a bit of time playing... it's called Chibi-Robo and you play a tiny little robot that wanders around in a house cleaning up and going on 'quests' to befriend and aid talking toys. Sounds a little ridiculous now that I'm describing it, but once I get my hands on one of these rare games I can actually navigate, I'm hooked. Anyhow, chibi-robo. We ordered a copy online for my b-day, so that I can devote even more hours to this timewaster!

So this morning I got up and decided to play with the camera a bit as I did some laundry. (How exciting is my life that I get up at 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning to do laundry?) I don't know what this photo editing program is called. (I don't think it's the Gimp one that Adrienne recommended, and I am too lazy to go look.) It does what I wanted, though - colour correction, cropping, that kind of thing. I don't need something that will let me attach Richard's head to a tree or anything. Although, come to think of it...

I love the smell of clean, wet laundry, and as you all know, Richard and I are... frugal. So instead of paying to run a load of laundry through a dryer, we usually hang our laundry to dry.

socks in a row. I like how saturated the colour looks here
I think that I've got enough hand-knitted socks to last me 10 or 12 days. I should probably count them.

ooooh greyscale. how fancy.

Newish project - poor Richard has been looking at one lonely sock for a couple of weeks, so I thought that maybe I should start the second one. The discerning will note that the two needles on the right have the beginnings of a figure-8 toe-up sock on them.

With coffee to stimulate my brain cells, I should be able to figure out what I did with the first one, right? Maybe I should be writing this stuff down somewhere so that I'm not guessing how many stitches around this sock should be. Oh, wait. That's what this blog was supposed to be for, wasn't it? Oops.

Looking back, I see that I've promised pictures of a rabbit with an enormous beany behind. This is going to have to wait until I build up enough momentum to wrestle with the camera and computer again. But bunny is soooo funny that I eventually must share. Eventually.