Awesome.

Fibre Christmas snow

Ah.... my 70th post of the year. Not bad, not bad- not stellar or anything. But not bad. I drastically slept in today so this blog will be short. I want to walk to Broadway which will take me an hour or so so I need to get my day started. I'll let you know how that goes.

Xmas prezzie #1: Eyelet socks for my Grandma- these were finished in September, are part bamboo, and have a string of eyelets going up one side of each sock.

Xmas Prezzie #2: Soy Scarf Danica for Mom- if you want to see more of this scarf just go onto Raverly and look up Danica. There's a kabillion of them. Why? Cause it's the best scarf ever. I changed the width of the squares and used larger needles and it turned out well. I realized one third in that I was doing my SSKs wrong so I just continued doing them wrong to make it a pattern. And this was knit out of SWS by patons: 2 skeins.

Xmas Prezzie #3: Skull Dishcloth for Jason: I knit this freehand while watching Angel (season one). The teeth are duplicate stitch so that they would look different from the rest of the skull. The yarn is your typical dishcloth cotton and the rest of the skull was done in intarsia. I also knit Jason a felted skull but I don't have a good picture of that one yet (Julia-could you send me one?)
Xmas prezzie #4: Preggers sweater for Jenn. Not finished. Ran out of yarn about once inch from the last sleeve, but that point is moot since we actually want it looser so I'm going to knit inserts for the sides and then also put in buttons for when the Beeb takes over. It's Noro Kureyon colourway 153.
Xmas prezzie #5: The Too Big Hat That Could Stop Bullets Hat for Dad: seriously, this thing is so thick blocking it took forever because it refused to take in water. It's too big but Dad says he likes it (well, that is his role as a father I guess). The white is the softest merino ever and the edging is Noro Iro (silk and wool). Earmuffs included incase anyone shoots at his neck. Knit from the top down to prevent gauge problems buts I overestimated the size of my Dad's head. It was a fun knit, and I was impressed with the power of blocking when it came to getting the edges to lie flat. I blocked it over top of a lampshade.
Xmas prezzie #6: Aaahhh.... the Christmas sweater! Knit with Maggie's tweed flecked wool and using the stitch pattern from this sweater (I realize now they look pretty similar which is rather funny) but than getting my own gauge and using my Sweater pattern book to make the sweater. I used 8 1/2 skeins and it took me about three months but I think if I was just knitting this sweater it would only take a month because of the large gauge. I had to give it to my Grandpa still damp because this sucker takes forever to dry! I'm really happy with it and I hope it fits when he can finally try it on. Grandpa really seemed to like it so I'm happy.
Xmas prezzie # 6: Harry Potter mitts for Jim: Knit out of a lovely cashmere/wool blend and a made up pattern. I knit the thumb but knitting five stitches with a waste yarn and then knitting over those stitches again with the real yarn and undoing them for the thumb. I will do that for all my thumbs from now on (check out this pattern for a coherent explanation of what I just said). And they fit Jim, which made me happy because as we've seen before- me knitting accessories from afar doesn't always have the best results. I had a few friends who wanted to steal these mittens but I said no.
Xmas prezzie #7: Purple star felted bag for Julia: made with Quebecois yarn made by Birkland Bros (their link is down right now but it's a Vancouver yarn store). The bag was felted and the stars were cut out of a felted square and sewn on. Next time I will do an icord instead of a crochet edge to avoid the wavy edges and also knit slightly tighter to get a more sturdy bag. I guess the thing about not using patterns is that you have to figure these things out on your own but oh well. I really like the bag (and post pictures it got a double thick cinnamon stick spiral dark purple handle). Wheeeee.


Okay- this short post turned into a longer post that also got a phone call halfway through so now I'm really behind in my day (but I looked online and the yarn store I wanted to go to is closed till the 5th (bah!) so I'm going to have to modify my plans) (I'm on a quest to get the rest of the yarn for Jenn's sweater so she can get it before she gets the baby).

Have a good last day of 2007 everyone!

It's fine to be home

So after my flight was nearly an hour late leaving the runway, and after gathering my luggage, I made small talk with my taxicab-driver-man. It was generic small talk and I eventually got into the "it's good to be..." area. But I couldn't finish the sentence. I think I said it three times in a row each time refusing to lie and say "it's good to be back". Cause I was sad and I didn't feel like starting my time back by lying to a very nice taxicab-driver-man. I eventually said "it's good to be off the plane". I contemplated saying "it's good to be back so I can see my cat" but you never know if someone is a cat person or not and whether they'd understand. You see, Vancouver has a lot- I know- but as of the first week of January it doesn't have my family. And you know- I don't always function all that well without them. Now yes, yes- I'm the first to admit it's also material things like incredibly tasty homecooked meals, really nice furniture, spiffy laptops and cable- but it does just come down to family. And I really didn't want to leave today. A little part of me just wanted to go collect Spike and move home. And so I pouted and could not lie to my taxicab-driver-man.

But you know, I've been home for two hours now, and I'm okay now. I think I forgot some of the good things about my Vancouver home. One I never forgot was the demanding presence of this guy. Who has just, after two hours, finally sat down on the couch without me. He was either tripping me as I walked or climbing over anything to get on my lap if I was doing anything (unpacking, getting changed, photographing things). He is very excited by the new items and went a little psycho when I opened my suitcase. He immediately climbed inside and sat on stuff so I decided to unpack my duffle bag- but then he had to climb in there too. Then he got really excited and had to bite me. I understood.

So all this stuff I brought home? Can't show it all now. But I started taking photos and can take a whole lot more with my new massive memory card for my computer (I'd take a photo of it but it's inside my camera and hence impossible). Oh lala. Spike has already started showcasing another present. Here is a fuzzy photo of my new curtains!!!
I bought the material with money from my Grandparents and my Mom helped me sew them. Right now they are too long but that is because I didn't actually take measurements so we left them long. I'm going to get some stitch witchery to finish the hems. Aren't they gorgerous? The material was 50% off! Woo!

Then I went and got material for my bedroom as well. I'll take another photo when this one when it's fixed and during the day. And some more presents! Oh the spoiled life I lead. These are just a few of the wonderful stitch markers I got from Jim and Jenn made by the fabulous Nonny Mouse ( I don't know her but my sister assures me she is such and I think these stitch markers prove the case). There are more that are part of my Buffy themed birthday present (too cool for school) but those are still packed somewhere.

Can't forget my Bollywood presents from Bangladesh Santa (these are the coasters- they came with placemats, a coin purse, and a kleenex box (which I have already put kleenex inside and am using)).

And I was going to show you my blanket from Jason and Julia but there seemed to be a furry monster on it. He approves of it greatly.

Much more to say but I'm tired and I should go to sleep soon. I'll post more presents and my knitted presents soon (before the first).

Good night!

Still snowing here

I'm at home now. Had my first home cooked meal (I cook meals- but those don't fall under the category of 'home-cooked') (more like.... 'meh' category) and am drinking lots of lattes and watching TV (aahhhhh....). I also have all these people around me that I sure do like a whole darn lot. It's a good time.

What's fun is getting to talk to my sister's belly and pat the belly and kiss the belly and tell the belly secrets. There be a pirate beeb in that thar belly. Aaarrrggh.

I'm knitting- not as much as I could be- but nearly done all the presents. One will be wrapped with the needles and frankly, that person has already seen their present and consulted on it sooooo yeah. There will be an Xmas present blog no doubt.

Oh- we're doing a puzzle! And by 'we' I mean that I work on the puzzle and sometimes my family members come join me for a bit. I figure that life can't be that stressful if I can work on a puzzle with frogs (and the whole denial about schoolwork helps too).

School is fine. I finally got my video up (after it had been deleted twice- once my fault once UBC's fault). In January I do my two week practicum, which will be fun. I'm doing social studies, gym, and one art class blitz. I've got most of the 50 names down but I'm sure once I'm immersed I'll get them all down pat.

Oh! And I started spinning again with my lovely drop spindle. The fleece is some lovely stuff from New Zealand. Mmmmm..... purple.

And sorry if I'm pretty vacant this holiday bit- I go from spending hordes of time every day on the computer to barely any but I look forward to catching up afterwards and seeing how everyone's holidays were. I'm so paranoid about my apostrophes now. I may need to take Jenn's course.

Mmmm.... nutella.

Dearest dearest Tobey

ah my dear dying plant. I promise this week I will go buy more pots and soil and transplant you so you stop dying. And don't worry- I will talk to somebody who actually knows something about plants and not try to save you by my age old technique of forgetting to water you and taking you on cross-province trips.

The lament to Tobey comes on the heels of a kinda nasty burn I now have on the backs of three of my fingers on my right hand. In fact typing this is slightly painful (and it's rather ironic I misspelled typing three times and had to go back constantly) so this won't be a long post. No worries though darling readers! With soothing aloe vera from Tobey and some lovely drugs, I can still knit, albeit slowly because I can't wrap the yarn around my fingers, but I can still knit. Which is good because I have a goal to finish my Mom and my Dad's xmas presents by Friday at midnight. It can be achieved.

Tomorrow my class is going on two field trips! It will be uber fun! (I'm not being sarcastic right now).

Bonne nuit!!! (this is how Spike fell asleep the other day- mid stretch)

giggity

Yeah, I know. This is it- my reward yarn for completing the semester. It's 100% wool, Fleece Artist, dreadlocks. Let's just take a moment shall we?
Mmmm...




Anyhoo, I'm off to bed. Just figured I should upload these while the internet and blogger both seem to be working and I'm also waiting for my nails to dry. I painted them three weeks ago but realized I have no nail polish remover so either I go to school with cracked nail polish or I just constantly repaint them (the same colour over and over again) until the day that I actually remember to buy nail polish remover. It's a fun colour- very harlot red (not the actual name) but it's time for a new colour. And you are starting to notice that some sections are now receiving their third coat of paint while others aren't. Sigh.

I got a brother in law from Westjet today! He was rather late due to the snow and Vancouver's inability to realize that every year it snows in Vancouver at least once so maybe they should do a better job and not SUCK when it does (that sentence is fun in all sorts of ackwardness). I introduced him to the good times of Cake Mania while I made hordes and hordes of paper chain garland. I hope to have enough to span the living room walls. Okay, good night all!

/love

Ack and Oh-no!

Well November was not the best month for keeping up on blogging. I think I was distracted by all the NaBloPoMo people out there. Good job you all! Well, besides the crushing demands of school and housework and socializing (that sounded rather pretensious didn't it? sorry), one of the reason I haven't been blogging as much is because I can't talk about my knitting!!!! It's all Xmas presents now and that would kinda defeat the 'present' part of Xmas if I just talked about them all. However I have updated my side bar to include them in all their vagueness. (except for that preggers part... guess who that goes to?) I have a graph on my wall now where my school calendar use to be and am filling it is as I knit. I have two parents, two grandparents, two sisters, and two brother-in-laws that are getting knitted things, and one friend and one uncle who may be getting knitted things. 24 days to go right? I can do it. And I may do a sneek peek of photos with massive detail one day. Oh, and I do have to show you my yarn that was my reward for finishing my papers. Mmmm... blogger seems to be having difficulties. Another blog entry then.

Okay- I'm off to knit with my new *cashmere* yarn. Oh that's right. I said cashmere.

Running-out-the-door blog

Janis Ian is *so* the soundtrack to my life right now

so besides the hordes of schoolwork and groupwork- my place is FREEZING so I had to call my landlord and convince him that yes, my place is cold, and no, I don't care that nobody else thinks their apartment is cold- mine is still cold. So eventually he came over (he has a dayjob so I can't begrudge him too much) and fiddled with the heat thingies and killed one of my facecloths with dirty water that came out of them. And oh yeah, he also had some comments to make on the state of my apartment. Yes, I am very messy right now but you know what? I'm a student on the edge so KEEP YOUR COMMENTS TO YOURSELF!!! If I didn't love my shoes I would have chucked one at his head. This isn't a post to get pity, you all leave such nice comments on my blog, I reread them when I'm down. This is just a post about my comically miserable day.

Well, back to disagreeing with people about prescribed learning outcomes.




Oh the fun never stops here.

getting a little choked up here

Well, I am so behind which means I will be blogging a lot in the next few weeks in order to reach my goal. I have a lot to write about- it's just getting here that seems to be the trouble. I'm still reading blogs too, I've been bad about commenting but no worries- I am lurking!

This blog is just a quickie about Xmas presents. I love making lists and hey- making a list of things I want? Sounds like fun to me. It's not the most original list for me, mostly books and fibre, but meh, creature comforts.

1. Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac-this is the one with the baby surprise cardigan right? A knitter will correct me if I'm wrong please.
   
2. Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby- you know, if I ever have eight skeins of thread weight silk lying around, two years to dedicate to it, and have gained the patience of some one else, cause in which case I will SO knit one of these. Either that or I'll just modify the designs into something I can manage and read it obsessively
3. Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan- she has some odd designs, I'll give you that, but she's also a knitting genius. Mmmm... hexagons.
4. Inspired Cable Knit & Inspired Fair Isle Knits by Fiona Ellis- both books are knitterly goodness and very technically awesome. Dude.
   
5. Kaffe Knits Again-so apparently this guy knits or something. Eh, who knew? (sarcasm)
6. Lace Style by Allen and Budd- I'm running out of things to say about the books. They have knitted stuff in them. Me like knitted stuff.
   
7. Fitted Knits by Stephanie Japel-looks interesting, can anyone tell me more about this book?
8. Romantic Hand Knits by Annie Modesitt- I don't know how many of these I would knit, but it looks like I could learn a lot about shaping from this book, and also it's just too fun.
   
9. Knitting New Scarves by Lynne Barr- I like to knit scarves.
   
10. God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens- woah! Where did that transition come from? Sheesh.
    
11. Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design by Schemer -pretty self explanatory I think.
12. Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner- a good friend of mine swears by this book. Looks very interesting.
    
13. I Like You by Amy Sedaris- I always covet the books Julia gets for xmas.
    
14. Yarn- I know some people don't want to buy me yarn cause they don't know what I'll like but if this is where you are headed- when in doubt, anything by Fleece Artist, Hand Maiden, Koigu, or sock yarn.
    
15. Fleece- really... anything.
    

But really, your love is all I need.

Aaaawwww!!!!


But seriously now, it's true. Christmas rules because it is the most unbridled excuse to spend time with the people that mean the most to you. Just come over for tea and it's all good. I always have mandrin oranges to spare.

Things you learn on halloween

1. if you press snooze on your alarm clock, and also bump the regular time up by three minutes (to shorten the snooze time), your alarm won't go off.
2. apparently, people will party on Halloween night, even if it's a Wednesday.
3. Spike hates fireworks and I think my neighbours spent their entire month's rent on them. It's been three hours.
   
4. I'm such a lucky person to be receiving the sweetest packages in the mail from all over (Canada, America, & Bangladesh). They make me happy like chocolates and bananas. I mean, I knew this one before today, but it bears repeating. Hi Bears!
   
5. if you live in a small apartment, don't go buy Halloween candy because you will get NO trick or treaters. But don't worry- you can manage to pawn a lot of it off on your friends.
6. if you drink those coolers your friends bring you, and knit... you will be frogging a lot of stitches. Grandpa's sweater will not get finished by Xmas at this rate.
   
7. 50% of students will get the Medusa thing, the other 50% will think you are Jack Sparrow (dreads).
   
8. Moms are just priceless. Priceless.
   
9. teaching a guy how to knit a scarf for his girlfriend is so much fun.
   
10. it's 11:20pm and I won't be sleeping for awhile yet (see points 2 and 3)
    

So there it is. I've learned a lot today. And by the by, thanks for all the sweet comments left here on the last post. You all rock.

Peace, yo.

Lazy teacher candidate

You know what is funny? I've become less confident in myself as a teacher since entering the program. There is just so much to know, so much to pay attention to, so much to plan, organize, read, reflect, analyze, discuss... and that's just now! I've still months to go! And my teacher keeps on telling me to work on my confidence, because I raise my voice at the end of some sentences, but I'm like.... this is just going to get worse. Soon I'll be a high pitched David Beckham teacher. Ah well.

Today we have a day in lieu. I have hoards of lesson plans to get started on. Math, social studies, gym, and just finished a literacy one. But the thing is, the more stressed out I get, the more I want to knit, the more I knit, the less schoolwork I do, the less schoolwork I do, the more stressed out I get.

It's a fun month.

Luckily, the majority of my presentations are over. I presented on gifted learners, evolution, a case study on a teacher named Nan, A Bad Kitty, and soon... Dance! (Jazz hands!). I got a lot of positive feedback from my presentation on evolution which was nice. I was very concerned I was going to have some stern looks. Now, keep in mind this was a presentation to facilitate discussion, so I couldn't take sides. I did present both sides and since one side, you know- the sane one, has a stronger argument than the other my position was clear, but no one felt attacked for anything so that was good.

And here is a picture of Spike. This is when he decided to help me prepare the table for my friend's birthday dinner. He's just warming up the spot I was going to put the cake.

What a good kitty. A very very good good good kitty.

Everything is a secret

This was suppose to be a post about my knittings- it still is, but I just realized I didn't think this out enough before hand.

So this first project is a secret because it's for winner of the best halloween costume contest. And also, it's crochet. This is a funny story, remind me to tell you about it after the winner receives it. And this one is an Xmas present! Sheesh. This is as close as you are going to it get right now (it took me like three tries to get that sentence right!). I've been knitting on this at school and people are outright threatening to steal it.
This next photo isn't suppose to be a secret. It's the syncopated cap seen here (scroll down) designed by Kate Gilbert, but I didn't take any photos of the whole toque before giving it to its new owner- my friend James. I'll get a photo of it some time at school and show it to you then. It's totally awesome.
So there you have it. Is secret. And ohmigod, have you seen this site? Thanks to Jenn for that one. I have a lot of blog entries for this weekend. I have a rant about food, a rant about telling upsetting stories in public spaces and of respect to the dead, and a rant about intelligent (snicker) design. And then another one about embracing the chub.

I'm going as Medusa for halloween, what about you?

Twice the funness!

So this picture is funny but it's the only one that turned out half decent. It's my new hair!And this is a short post because it's 11:16, I have school tomorrow-but you see, I CRASHED this afternoon and zonked out for three hours! Three hours! Wtf? I'm not the one with a splitpea!* Honestly. So now I'm totally awake. Sigh.

Anyhoo, in other very exciting news... I got featured in yarnival! That's very neat and makes me smile. The other entries are uber fun, I'd recommend spending some time on all the blogs there.

Okay, I'm going to go drink warm soy milk and chew calcium pills.

*Wheeeeeeeeeheeeheeeeeeeheheheheeeeeeeeheheeeheheheeeeheheheeeheheeheehehee!

I mean really people

So, people from all around are using my apartment's dumpster because of the strike, so when I went to throw out some trash, it was full. I mumbled something about bastards and decided to wait till garbage day and left the little bag of trash under my sink. Anyhoo, some more bastards went and left their garbage in front of the dumpster, cause you know, the garbage man always gets out of the truck and puts bags into the dumpster. No wait, he doesn't. It's a machine arm and it doesn't care. Hence garbage day came and went and now garbage is strewn allllll around the dumpster. Ew. I didn't want to go near it, but today decided that I had to throw out the trash. Until I looked out the window and watched my neighbour pile her garbage pile her garbage ONTOP of the dumpster. Seriously. I mean, what was she thinking? So now if I want to throw out my garbage I would have to take her 4 bags off of the lid or just pile my garbage on the ground with all the other stuff. Decline of civilization is living all around me. I was going to put a picture of my new hair on here but I figured I would wait until I had a blog post that wasn't all about garbage. And oh yeah, I did a quiz and at the end it turned out to be one of those stupid chain things were if you don't send it to X amount of people than your wish will never come true. So that's right people, my wish that I could find my nail clipper isn't going to come true!!!! Oh no! Just for the record, I hate everything to do with that 'chain' mentality, please never ever send me one. I just get angry. But, I did find out some really life changing things, like that my priorities are (in this order) pride, love, family, career, and money. I like how money is last. Student loans will do that to you. And that I think of myself as noble, need perfection in my partner, see my enemies as 'ew' (that part is true enoug I guess), sex is precious (I'd do the fat hobbit), and my life is calm. Right. Calm is *so* the word I would use to describe my life right now. And also, for the friend labeling one, it said that I'll never forget one friend, and for another friend it said I'd remember them for the rest of my life- isn't that the exact same thing? Ugh.

I'm kinda cynical and snarky tonight. I think I would go to bed.

Bonne nuit!

*snuck*

so apparently I'm allergic to Calgary. Sheesh. I'm trying to do things like, oh, I don't know... schoolwork and maybe also... housework (since I have a friend coming to stay with me for four days and the place is trashed) but it's hard when you can't hear out of one ear, blow your nose every two minutes, and basically feel like crap. It's a sinus infection I think. I feel a little better today than yesterday but I don't want to miss school so I'm taking it very easy. I'm not leaving the house, nor am I getting out of my pjs. Frankly, I'm amazed I got out of bed.

So here's an interesting thing I noticed about Calgary. I could never live there because a) I'm allergic to it and b) sushi is VERY expensive there, but you know what? We went to the mall and compared to BC, women have more than one body shape there. Here, everyone is skinny, everywhere you go, skinny (and not the good skinny that some people are just naturally, the emancipated skinny). In Calgary, women came in all shapes, some skinny, some curvier, some bigger, but I mean, they were all good, and it just seemed like a greater range of body types. I loved it. We need to figure out how to get that over here. Rant over.

I went to my cousin's wedding this weekend and it was just wonderful. The service was good, the bride was *beautiful*, the reception was awesome- overlooked one of Calgary's 'lakes', good food, yummy yummy cupcake-cake, excellent tunes, and mostly free and then very cheap drinks! Woo! Go Lisa and Nick! Seriously though, it was just wonderful and I'm so happy for my cousin and her husband, they are perfect for each other. It was also great to see a lot of the family, my Mom, my aunt and uncle, my cousins, my grandparents. It was a very good way to spend thanksgiving. The turkey dinner comes next week when my friend and I get together to celebrate a belated thanksgiving (basically we want to eat turkey).

Okay, I'm going to go lie down now.

What's going to have to happen?

The title is in reference to my feelings about school, and what it is going to take in order for me to do my schoolwork. I love my readings and I love being in class, but oh my, between papers and groupwork, I am so not into it right now. Sigh. Some of the things I think need to happen are 1. more organized workspace 2. more organized binder 3. less groupwork 4. more good eating (this weekend was full of the very good, but very bad, kind) and 5. good hair days (I got my hair cut so hopefully that will happen soon). Anyhoo....

So here is my spinning stuff for mom. First I buy lots of yummy fleece. This here is 100% mohair. Very slipperly. But beautiful.
Then you take that fleece and you pull it and pull it but you never break it (well, sometimes you do, no big deal really). This is called drafting. Then your fleece is drafted and reading for spinning. So this is impossible to take a picture of without a friend there, but this is a 'representation' of what goes on: you spin the spindle and feed the drafted fleece to the spindle, and voila... yarn. (not so voila, there's more swearing involved and dropping of the spindle, but remember, this is just a 'representation'). Then you get singles! Singles have a lot of energy that will slant your knitting, so you can leave it as is, or ply them. To ply, I put my spindles into center pull balls, and then you can either ply singles to each other, pulling the center out and plying it with the outside, or you can ply two singles together. I wanted a really long skein so I plyed the two singles together.
This is a bad shot but basically, I put the yarn into little tubs with holes cut out of the top and then spin the two singles together, but this time you spin in the opposite direction. This turned out to be waaaay too much yarn for my poor spindle but I managed to get through it. And then you have the prettiest yarn you ever did see me make.

And now, back to the soul-draining paper. And oh yeah, if someone could come cook me dinner all this week, that would be awesome.

Thanks. (next blog, more talking- less whining, I promise!)




ETA: you may notice the progression of natural light in the photographs. I did all this spinning in one day (it's a gift skein) and started at 11am, finished at 9pm. I also did laundry but mostly, spinning. All day. It was more exhausting than I expected.

How to knit yerself a Pirate Scarf (or... it be a scarf only a pirate could love)

Avast! Here be yer lesson on pirate scarves. Of course pirates knit, yer scurvy dawg, many hours on the ocean vast, what else is there to do, to kill the time betwix pillaging and plundering? Eh?

Here be yer pirate scarf. Ah, that be a fine pirate scarf.
First, yer spin some yarn. Different lengths, different widths, this be a pirate scarf, full of piratey chaos, not some fancy thing an englishman would wear (oh I be mocking the englishmen!).

Next yer boil yer yarn, dye it in blood coloured koolaid.

Or, for the more modern day pirate, you microwave it in a marth stewart goblet. Be sure to assert your pirateness at all time by saying 'arrr' a lot and possibly doing some pillaging while waiting for the yarn to cool off.
Ahoy! What a booty of fine coloured yarns!
Armed with knitting needles that be adorned with the heads of your smaller enemies (9mm sized enemies to be exact), cast on (ahoy!) seven stitches and knit! Knit like a pirate!
Arrr, let the enemies of knitters beware! Remember, stripes be a pirate's trademark, we don't knows why, but it just is. Aye.
Change yarn when yer want, change the amount of rows, you be a pirate, you follow no rules! However, even a pirate with chaos in her heart knows, when one bulky yarn be placed next to a weaker, thinner yarn, it's good to modify the pattern to prevent a puffy scarf, like those of popular pirate sleeves seen on TV. When knitting with yer bulky yarn, decrease from 7 to 5: knit one, knit two together, knit one, knit two together, knit one. When you switch to your scrawny yarn, increase back up to seven: knit one, knit into front and back of yer stitch, knit one, knit into the front and back again, knit one. You be a smart pirate indeed.

And like finding a rich village to pillage, you soon will be quite a wealthy pirate. When you rampage a village, the innocents will stop to remark on your scarf, ah, the foolish die so quick. Wear your pirate scarf with pirate pride and remember, if it's chaos inspired, and you say arrr a lot, it may be a pirate thing. You may be a pirate yet, ye scurvy mate.

Helper Kitty

Since I've been so bad about blogging for Spike, we've decided to stop posting on his blog and I already a category for him so he'll just post his stuff here too. So tonight the post is about what a helper I have in Spike.

Here's Spike helping me read a knitting pattern. (ignore the mess) I don't know if this means he really likes the sweater, or really hates the sweater.
Here's Spike helping me break in a gift Julia sent me from Dhaka. It's a Hello Kitty cereal box. I guess he really wanted all the cereal to himself.
Here's Spike viewing the outside from ontop of my bookshelf, where he is not suppose to be. And it's completely impossible to get him down from there (he will scratch you) since you know, this is a very important vantage point in which to view the 'others'. It's for my own protection I'm sure (and if I have to pick up books from the floor afterwards, so be it).
Here Spike is helping me keep the laundry from the dryer warm. I had set it down to shut the door and I looked back and there he was, helping out. He zonked out for a few hours in order to fulfill his kitty duties.
Here he is helping me when I spilled soy milk on the floor. He stared and stared and stared, then he sniffed it, than he stared. Then he decided finally that it wasn't worth licking and walked away. And then I cleaned it up and mopped the floors. He's a big help.
And finally, here he is helping me with my homework. That sheet he's sitting on was my reference paper, and I guess he decided that I had done enough schoolwork and it was actually time to pet him. He's a very diligent cat.
So that's it for now, I actually have a tonne of photos of Spike, and I could do a whole blog entry about him helping me put the daybed together, but another night. I need to go get some spinning done :)

And no worries Mom, I'm putting together a spinning post for you- just wait to see the new fleece I bought! Wheeee!