Plugs-o-the-Week

Want to make your own, custom labels for your handmade garments? Kathy, aka Grumperina, has a *great* tutorial/how-to here. Great photos, easy-to-follow instructions, and a List of What You Need that actually includes a printer (which so many people forget to add). *And* she's found this sort of label to be completely machine-washable. I am *so* going to make a bunch of "A CraftyGryphon Original" labels (eventually)....

<blatant plug>
       "Drunk cat hair," my husband replied.
       I looked at him again. "You didn't get [inane task X] done because of..."
       "Drunk cat hair," he repeated.
       "What the hell are you talking about?" I asked.
       "That book you just got. Drunk with cat hair and knitting." He sighed.
       "You know, the one about the woman who got divorced and started knitting?"
       "Oh. Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair."
       He rolled his eyes. "That's what I said."
       "How did the book stop you from doing [inane task X]? Did it trip you in the hallway?"
       He rolled his eyes again. "I accidentally picked it up, and accidentally flipped to the first page, and then I forgot to stop reading," he explained.
       "Ah. I understand," I said, patting him genly on the shoulder. "It's that sort of book."

It really is. I know I've recommended it before, but hey, a non-knitting male enjoyed reading it, and I'm certain that's not the intended demographic. So it's a good book from a non-knitter, non-divorced, non-girl viewpoint, too.

[KnitStuff/DrunkDivorcedCatHair.jpg]

</blatant plug>

See? I *do* knit!

Okay, it's getting close to The End of my first ball of Lilac Jade Sapphire Cashmere Silk (that's colorway #31). I managed, using the little grabber-things meant to help me get things off top shelves without risking life and limb, to grab the bag Ball #2 was hiding in (on the other side of the vast pile of furniture and electronics that is no longer in front of the sliding glass door in the back room, since that's now gone completely, but no, no furniture has been moved back). I started to ball it up on the ride into work, and got this far by the time I actually had to leave the breakroom to go to my desk:

[KnitStuff/SecondSkeinLotVS.jpg]
And here's the shawl. I'm somewhere in the middle of Pattern Row Repeat Block #7, which means I have just over (or under?) three full repeats to go (or seven half-repeats, to be exact) before the edge starts. And as you might be able to tell, little Cup-o-Shawl doesn't fit in its cup any more. (But man, having the unshatterable cup to store the ball of yarn in in my handbag? Wow, that works well! I haven't lost the sucker on the train ONCE!!)

[KnitStuff/LotVS-2.jpg]
shawl
[KnitStuff/LotVS-2a.jpg]
close-up
The close-up, of course, looks spagetti-like, as most shawls do at this halfway sort of point. I think it's going to be pretty. Hopefully, I'll be on the border by the end of January. Actually, I probably will be... I'm just hoping I can find my copy of Lace Style by the time I need it to see what the heck I'm supposed to do to *get* the border!

First Monday of the New year

I want a Seed Stitcher!! I got an imported latch hook kit, and the latch hook provided is too big for the canvas it comes with! Can you believe this? Now, I can use a lovely size 10 crochet hook, fold the little rugyarnbits in half, pull them halfway through the canvas (about twenty at a time), then go *back* and pull the ends through each loop, one by one... but this really kills the mindless rhythm of latch hook. I *will* say that it's the best printed canvas I've ever worked - I won't have to refer to a chart to get the picture just as it should be.

But man, it needs a tiny, tiny latch hook!!

I did get something I wanted: Laurie Perry's 'Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair'. Finished it in a day, and it was wonderful. If you don't quite know who I'm talking about, she's also Crazy Aunt Purl.

Didn't get any actual knitting done (maybe a row or two on the Lilly of the Valley shawl). Didn't get much cross-stitch done. Didn't actually get past the buy-the-necessary-materials step of further home renovations. Instead, I went to see movies!

Movie	Opinion
National Treasure: Book of Secrets	Fun, and more or less what I expected, based on the previous film. Predictable? Sure... but that's the point of treasure-hunt based popcorn flicks. It was fun seeing lots of DC-local stuff, and fun seeing what I know they filmed when they were in town... that didn't make it into the movie. But, then, Riley's two best lines from the trailer aren't actually in the film. It did, however, contain fun things like puzzles, travel around the world, car chases, a somewhat likeable villian (that's smart - I like this series because the villians are just as smart as the heroes), and Helen Mirren. (plot summary)
Enchanted	Disney fluff, with the up-to-date strong heroines, fun musical numbers and MORE talking chipmunks (like the other three weren't enough). I have some serious issues with the animated princess, though... she's what, a size 0? Great job promoting health, there, Disney. Usually you make your heroines at least somewhat *possible*. And, I suppose, the animated Giselle is... she lived in the middle of a forest, and maybe she didn't know how to feed herself. But no, wait, the evil Queen Narcissa is *also* a toothpick. And her dragon looked soooooooo much better in the trailers. ASIDE FROM THAT, though, it's a nice, fluffy, fun bit of entertainment. And, OK, I hadn't realized James Marsden was Prince Edward. Oh, and the wonderful character actor Timothy Spall is the Evil Sidekick, which is a nice visual shorthand for the kiddies that first met him as Peter Pettigrew/Wormtail in the Harry Potter films.
Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street	Wow. Okay, this is a really bloody, gory musical (yes, musical) about a guy who kills a lot of people, and his downstairs neighbor, who turns the victims into meat pies she then sells. It's a VERY hard R - you get to see the killing being done, complete with blood everywhere and then some. If you can get past that, this is one of my top three favorite movies for cinematography and visuals (the other two being "300" and "The Matrix") - and OMG, the actors totally rocked it. Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman have always been favorites of mine, and now that she's playing truer to herself, Helena Bonham Carter is amazing. Timothy Spall and Sascha Baron Cohen, too? If there's an award for casting, I hope Susie Figgis gets it. Even Stephen Sondheim is reported to like this adaptation of his work. Tim Burton is finally back on-stride here. Yaaay! Musical horror!!

Because this is allegedly a knitting blog (which is a trick when I haven't knitted since last post), I give you a photo of older knitting-in-progress. Much to my surprise when I found this recently, I was about a third of the way done... which is something, given there's around 260 stitches PER ROW, and it takes FOUR ROWS to get one "pattern" row done... gaaaaaa!!
[KnitStuff/illusiondragon-1.jpg]
The Dragon Illusion Blanket.
You can sort of see the dragon's wing starting to emerge...

Doors!

Wasn't here yesterday, as I was at home with the contractors. The "internet at home" thing is just *not* fast enough to deal with blog updates!

Cool thing of the day: DK, the Nautical Knitter (who brought us the lovely Guenivere, aka Secret of the Stole I) and he who is known as "Mr. K" have started a great internet resource: www.knitwith.us. Find things you need, find things out you need to know, watch videos, listen to podcasts... lots and lots of yarny goodness! I just know I'll have fun poring through the site when I should be doing work.

Other cool thing of the day: The construction on my house is almost done!

[NeatoStuff/BathroomWindow1.jpg]

[NeatoStuff/NewDoors1.jpg]

On the downside, I can't get to ANY of my projects, but for two: the Lilly of the Valley shawl, which has 3.5 more repeats to go... and I'm going to run out of skein #1 of yarn any second now (skein #2 is inaccessible), and this ancient Pocahontas cross stitch which I picked up and have been stitching mindlessly on. That's the great thing about Disney kits, when you can find them: big, giant, heaping-meeping blocks of colors that both fly by and take forever. And might I just say that Pocahontas has HUGE thighs.

[CrossStitch/PochanontasBB-1.jpg]

Happy New Year!

Ye gods and little fishes. How did it get to be 2008 so soon?

I mean, I distinctly remember 1978 (we lived in South Korea), 1988 (College - I got mono, and missed most of the fall semester. I also weighed 106 pounds afterwards - boy, has THAT changed), 1998 (bought a house)... that's a lot of decades. Yikes!!

At least I'm starting the year off right: I did, in fact, finish the Britney Handbag before midnight!! Woohoo! So, I start 2008 with 59 UFOs!

The Proof:

[KnitStuff/BritneyHandbagFinal1.jpg]

[KnitStuff/BritneyHandbagFinal2.jpg]

The handle, which is crochet waffle-stitch, worked GREAT, and I love the buttons I found. It's lined with a lovely minty green, with matching eyeglass case and change-purse. Wheeeee!

The other miracle? I'm still at 59 UFOs!! I *didn't* start anything new yet, not even the "freebie" New Year's Day project. Heck, I even spent part of New Year's Eve getting the sixth sleeve started on the Cat Sweater! Woohooo!

I now present a long-ago project: The Sheepy Sweater!
[KnitStuff/SheepySweater.jpg]
This is what you can do with Light & Lofty, size 13 needles, and an ability to make a lot of French knots (or colonial knots) with Light & Lofty. And, of course, a wee bit of stitching for the sheepy legs and faces. Quick and fun!!

A big colossal DRAT: Camp Stitches is in Santa Fe in May this year. That's a really cool thing; I'd love to be able to drag my husband to New Mexico; he's never been, and I'm sure there would be a few side-trips, since we were already there. Unforntunately, I think it's counterprogrammed against my youngest (and last) niece's confirmation, which I absolutely, positively cannot and will not miss. *sigh* Hopefully, they'll keep having camp at cool places, and I'll get to go in 2009 or 2010!