Why Hello There! AKA: Part I- The Move

It's been over two months! Which, I think, is the longest I've ever gone without posting! Bad blogger! Bad!

Okay, a few reasons. I lost the internet for well over a month so I wasn't able to blog and it kinda moved me out of a blogging frame of mind.

As well? I've been super duper busy! Report cards, moving, fat cat, roommates, family, 52 job applications, voting, planning trips to NY- it was a crazy time!

So my return will be featured in three parts I've decided. The Move. Making Stuff. All Good Stuff. Even though now the move is old news, I'll start there.

THE MOVE

Letseehere... it's crazy but I have totally forgotten about my old place. It's so odd how quickly that happened. I think I categorized my apartment in my brain in something other than 'home'. It was like a home, but it wasn't there, you know? It wasn't until I moved into my new place and just felt this total stillness here and was like 'well holy crap- this is a home.' I didn't realized I was missing that but now, I don't know, but I don't miss my old place at all. Well, the dishwasher sometimes, but that's it. Maybe it's because this place has a yard (small, but a yard nevertheless), it has two bedrooms, it looks out into a street full of children and cyclists, not an alley, I have family really, really, really close by, or maybe that I actually have to do dishes, but regardless, it feels like home and I love my new home.

The kitties were essential in the move. Lala hid a lot.
Spike would situate himself in places he shouldn't be and would scratch me if I tried to move him. He went a little psychotic the last bit before the move. Not crazy like before when he was a kitten, but just more excited and happy. He loved the boxes. It was like he couldn't decide where to sleep next! A box currently being packed, a pile of fresh laundry, on top of the books someone is trying to sort, oh the possibilities!
Of course I'm allowed on the stove. I'm allowed anywhere.

The move was crazy in that I didn't pack until the 28th. I got Frog Boxes and they arrived on Saturday, I moved on Wednesday. I did a tonne of purging and throwing out and giving away. I donated about ten pairs of shoes, four bags of clothing, fourty or so odd books, and probably five big boxes of other items. I also gave away a big bag of acrylic or other unloved yarn. It was a good thing.
My living room all packed up.
The rest of the boxes in the kitchen. In the afternoon the sun would hit the boxes and then the kitties were like lizards on a sunny road.

The move was all good. So glad I got movers. Never ever ever will I move without movers. Ever. It was hilarious. They got there and were very happy with the organization and all that (I had a lot of help to be that organized) and the movers were all smiles until they lifted the boxes. Then they realized I'm a reader. Then they didn't like me as much. We didn't make the boxes unbearable, we delegated all the books out (yes you can delegate books-sheesh) to different boxes, but still, I have a lot of books.

Anyhoo, besides having to drive back once to get all the groceries and Spike's insulin that I left in the fridge (thanks Ju), it was a very successful move. And because of the Frog Boxes, it meant I had to be unpacked by the following Saturday. I actually emptied the boxes by Friday, and then Sunday had a housewarming that went really well. My place is still coming together slowly. I'm looking for a small table and little stools for the kitchen window, I need more things on the walls, I'm still moving things around, but it's all coming together nicely. And I'm getting use to spiders. And by getting use to spiders I mean I don't scream as loudly as I use to when I see them.

So a tour. Hm... well, these pictures are a little dated now but it's all the same idea.

Here's the front half of the living room. Imagine less chairs now.
It's funny how the loveseat and the two mini bookshelves worked perfectly in that space. Crazy!

The other half of the living room. My bedroom is on the left (no photos- it's messy) and the other door is the spare room (no pictures- it's my roommate's room now). The kitchen is further down.
Oh, I wanted to include this picture of the scratching post. It was broken during the move and my awesome BIL constructed this out of the pieces, which I think is even better than the original.
The kitchen is boring but here is a cute photo of Spike modeling it for you. He's just figuring out where his food is kept and how he can dig it out (I've had to move his food three times and last night I put it in the front hallway closet that he can't reach so he tipped over the garbage twice last night).
Still good counter space and lots of storage. Gas stove. It's cute. I have a little window that I have a herb garden outside of which just means I need to learn how to cook with fresh herbs.
The bathroom is super tiny but makes up for that fact by having a huge bathtub. Here is Spike modeling again. See how tiny he looks?!? I love that tub!

So that's the new place. It's pretty rad. Slowly making it my own still. I've had so much help moving here. My sister, BIL, and a very good friend of the family all helped me move and helped me organize where things should go. My BIL put so much together for me that I couldn't have done on my own. My Mom helped me figure out effective storage and gave me a lot of cleaning tips. And now, my kick-ass roommate is helping out a lot. She is a good friend from high school and is going to UBC for a sememster so hey, it all works out.

I love decorating. I have a lot of my Bangladeshi and Papau New Guinea art up.
An unfortunately fuzzy photo, but my local Okanagan art has also gone up.
And could these birds be any cuter?
They'll be in the front hallway when I purchase the proper screws for them.

And yes, how do the cats feel about the new place?

There are two cats in the above photo.

They're making do somehow.

Still in pieces

Well, I don't know about all of you but woah. August is pretty awesome. I'd be okay with it not ending but my whole, you know, no income thing is starting to put a cramp in things. I have been super busy and running around like mad. I never know what day it is I just know where I am suppose to be in relation to what I am currently doing. It's like 'today I'm going to walk to Tisol and then go have dinner with Ju and tomorrow Mom gets here and one day after Mom gets here I go to Gibsons and after Gibsons Jen and Jim get here and then after Jim and Jen get here I am going to Pitch and Putt and the BBQ for Jess and Jay and after that Jess and Jay are getting married and....' and occasionally I nap.

I have lots to blog about so I just decided to see which photos were first in my queue because normally it would be all 'WEDDING' but my battery is dead and it needs to charge before I can upload so don't worry, soon there will be pictures of the JJ wedding.Anyhoo, last you heard about the quilt was this post where I amazed you all with my mad colouring skillz. We've gone a bit from there though it may not look like it. I love how long this quilt took even before I got it to a sewing machine.

Anyhoo, I finally gathered my courage and started cutting the fabric. Most likely against/with the wrong grain but is anyone really expecting this quilt to be even remotely correct? I digress, so I started cutting, which I really thought was going to be the hard hard time consuming portion but once I got started it went really quickly.
I made little piles of each and put their letter on them.
Now, I can't remember if I told you but I did lose my binder with all my notes so I kinda had to fudge some of the fabrics and where they went. What was interesting was as I was cutting I found out, in time, about two choices I had made that were wrong. Because I just had the fabric cut according to how much I would need when I would pull a fabric and look at the numbers I was able to tell if the fabric was too small or too large and then look at the order of the letters and figure out which one it needed to be switched with. As well, if fabrics were very similar and the letters were similar in value than I would look at which fabric got more 'showtime' and choose the fabric I liked best. For instance, I have one fabric with mushrooms and one with herons, and when I couldn't figure out which was was which letter because their values were so similar I just figured out which one had the longest segments and made it the heron because I liked it better.

Did that make any sense?
I kept on cutting and ironing...
when Spike was kind enough to let me iron the fabrics.

I was very enamored with this fabric because the 3" cut was also the motif repeat so all the cuts were at the same point. I totally love this fabric. until it ran out. Yup. Ran out. Needed something lame like four more big squares. Nothing I could do. Cried a little. Considered finding the personal home phone number of the owner of Fabricana so he could check to see if they still carried the fabric (it was probably around 2am at this point) but I didn't. So the next morning I frantically bused over to Richmond and the insanely helpful people there found my fabric right away and cut me a quarter (I was tempted to ask for a four inch strip) and I finished the cuts. Here they are.
It's not really my favorite fabric anymore. So I finished. Some had a few pieces, like up above, or some, like L, had a lot of pieces.
Now, the funny part, is I was so proud of myself. Did that all in an evening. I was going to finish this quilt in NO TIME. Booyah. Because, I mean really, all I had to do after this was sort the pieces. Say it with me this time- booyah!
So I got the rows numbered and sorted on the table.
All spiffy like. And started sorting. And sorting. And sorting.... and sorting............. and sorting....
OH GOD WILL IT EVER END?!?!?!?About four or so hours later it did.
But during the sorting I realized that the notes I had made about which pieces went in which rows didn't always meet up with the coloured chart I had made. Keep in mind the program I used just gives you the chart, it doesn't break it down any further for you so you have to figure out each row. And the two ways I did that, through the colouring and the notes, didn't match. Fun.

So then I went through each row and made sure it matched the coloured chart I had made. I set up my table as a big stations and put each row in an envelope and put them in order.
Spike thinks order is for wussies. He prefers them on the floor and under his belly.
He's been such a help. And then I set up my ironing board to line up the pieces according to the coloured chart. It was a good thing I did because there was some discrepancies. It was really slow, but by far the most fun up until this point. It was neat seeing how the fabrics related to each other.
Until Spike figured he would see how the fabrics related to him. And also, if you ever see this look on Spike, which is very similar to his usual look for sure, but still, see that slightly crazier than usual glint? Do not try to pet him or get your fabric out from under him. It will require the use of spiderman band-aids if you do.
So, maybe five or so hours later or something else gawd awful, I finished the sorting.
They sat like this for a bit during all the family and wedding fun, but yesterday I sewed the first strip! 35 left to go!

And since this has been a Spike show (you can tell he's feeling better eh?) I though to throw in a picture of Lala.


This is me at my computer. It's hard to take a photo from this angle so sorry for the fuzziness but could she be any cuter?

I am the crazy cat lady

I think acknowledging it is the first step. Not caring is the second.

I'm having some knitting angst. In... a few days (I really need to go finish signing up) the knitting Olympics starts. Which is good because right now I'm really really really not a fan of the real Olympics so this is a nice positive thing to come out of it. Anyhoo, yeah, I need to get my knitting under control, hopefully a little more before it starts. Right now I've got....

Yeah... this is going to require some labeling...
#1: Rainbow Blanket~ lots of acrylic, happy colours, pretty boring but I love it. Would like to start on the next colour soon.
#2: Crazy Harry Potter Cowl~ started this around xmas and totally forgot about it. It was actually pretty neat so I'll talk more about it when it's done.
#3: Cashmere cowl that just needs some ties
#4: Harry Potter socks~ just need to finish the toe but had to frog it the first time because the sock was too short.
#5:Handspun cardi~ had some issues, need to frog the new blue yarn to the handspun (the pleats were not at a good spot).
#6:Noro scarf~ boooooooring.
#7: The Never Ending Knee Socks~ started these when I still lived in PG. I am on the ribbing but there's about four or five inches of black ribbing with tonnes of stitches on small needles. Makes my brain hurt. I need to bring this to knit night and offer rewards to anyone who knits a row for me.
#8: Brown Angst Socks~ augh. So many stitches.
#9: My swatch for the knitting olympics. Still haven't finished my training! I'll dedicate a whole post to this soon.

But wait! There's more!
#10: Alyria's skirt. Very close to finishing.

Some of you may already know my issue. It's called stockinette stitch, and I haz it. A lot of it. And if it's not stockinette stitch, it's garter or ribbing. Very boring knits. I really want to start a shawl or patterned socks or an intricate cardigan but I need to finish some of this!

And my reward for finishing half of these is this...
Dream in Colour Starry. I know I'm not suppose to buy yarn but a)I'm doing really well with not buying yarn and b)this is the first time I've seen this yarn so how was I not suppose to get it?

Onto a new subject, my bike. Still don't have a name :( Oh, and after that whole, 25km in 24 hours means you can't really move very well the next day. Oi vey. My progression into the bike culture is progressing nicely. Instead of using a purse flipped upsidedown and tied with cord to hold stuff...
I'm using a real pannier!

Other news, I made peanut butter tofu cabbage rolls. Mmmmm....


And the final subject of this post, I spent today with Darcy and she recommended a peacock feather for Spike. It worked really well and we played for about fifteen minutes before he decided he was done! That's a record for him. He never plays. Ever. He chases treats but that's about it.

I love this photo. The feather looks like molten something.
But look! Proof! He is playing!
But now he's pretty feisty so I'm going to leave him alone for a bit.
Next post... hopefully finished things!!!