Knitmas stash (photo happy)

And there it is, in all it's glory (cue singing angels). This is all the yarn and yarn relatedness that I brought back with me to PG that I did not have before. Not all of it is presents- I went a little mad at some yarn stores but when a wall of fleece artist stares back out at you how can you not? I should also acknowledge my dear friend Kayla who drove me to the Urban Yarns in Vancouver and, well, Adrienne too because she did offer to help me take the bus there so the thought counts. In the same breathe, my sister Julia did walk seven blocks and back with me to another horrid yarn store that was CLOSED!!! so she gets many a kudo for that too. She gave me the yellow cozy pet bag you can see above, along with Jason, for my birthday. I will carry knitting projects as well as the occasional textbook to school in that. For some reason my picture of the bag didn't turn out but the above photo does some justice to the cuteness of my dear cozy pet bag. Spike and Chuck were so tired from helping me clean my room all day they fell asleep ontop of my sock pile.
This is my Rio De La Plata, which is hand-spun kettle dyed (I have no idea what that means) 100% pure new wool from Uruguay 'faded gold fushio' aka... yellow. I bought this in a 'holy crap is there yarn in there?' moment walking on fourth in Vancouver with Kayla and Adrienne. The store had mostly noveltly yarn but some really, really, really fun novelty yarn and some others, like Noro and Colinette. I'm planning some fingerless complex cable gloves with this. It's very soft.
Here's a good shot of my swing needles (eeeheeeehee) from the River John Needle Company. They are made out of birch. I don't really know what the point of swing needles is, I mean, I've never had a moment where I'm knitting with straight needles and thought 'my life would be easier if these with dpns RIGHT NOW' but maybe I'm missing something important here. Behind my expensive frivolous needles are my darling mission falls 1825 wool100% merino superwash. Those are going to be a baby blanket for Jim and Jenn even though Jenn is not pregnant. My hints are carefully planned and sneaky. Very very sneaky. On this moniter, the colours of the yarn are represented truely and they work well together. I'm think a celtic knot patchwork with smaller patches going around the edge with an i-cord cable that changes colour. Did that make any sense? I've got a diagram started on paint for it so when I'm done I'll blog that so it makes some sense. I bought this yarn in Vernon. The needles are from Urban yarn (link above).
This yarn I bought from Urban Yarns as well and is called Be Sweet Magic Ball and is baby mohair with ribbon and everything. The yarn changes are part of the purchase and I just could not resist (despite the outrageous price). I had already started knitting this up on massive needles and is the shawl-now-scarf aka. first finished project of 2007 I was talking about earlier. The yarn is spun and dyed by women in South Africa in a program set up to help them earn income so that really helped me justify buying it. I would recommend it. I know I will buy more next time I'm in Vancouver (it's a really good thing I don't live there).
This is the first of the Fleece Artist mohair I bought, this one in Vernon. The picture only does it partial justice. The hues and shades and colours in this are all just bloody awesome. I want to knit a shawl out of it with points like a dragon wing. Why? Cause I'm a nerd who knits. That's why.
Oh sock yarn, how do I love thee? This picture sucks, you have no idea how brillant the pink is and how shocking the blue is. I love them. Lorna laces in crazy stripes. I'm going to knit these socks toe up to get the most out of each skein. Le sigh.

These skeins are from my parents for my birthday. They are 100% wool hand spun and dyed in the Okanagan. I have no idea what to do with them, besides pet them and ogle, but there's quite a bit so I'm almost thinking vest or a bag. I love that these are local, and the colours are wonderful. Nothing goes wrong with black but black with a moss forest green? It does make the heart grow fonder. Of yarn. Seriously, how do people not knit?
And behold-copious amounts of mohair from Fleece Artist, enough to knit this cardigan (pattern comes with) for such a reasonable price I nearly collasped on the floor. I actually went and checked with the yarn lady because I wanted to make sure that it was actually real and happening to me.
And me knitting books. Starting with the top left and working kinda clockwise we have the book of sweater patterns. Love a knitter? Buy them this book. It was a present from my parents for my birthday as well as the pattern a day calender below it (so not clockwise at all). I went through the calendar and sorted the patterns by pattern category, not date. It has some excellent sock patterns in there and just hordes of patterns altogether. I had such a fun time organizing them. Next to the calendar we have At Knit's End by the Yarn Harlot, a gift from my dear friend Adrienne who evidently understands me quite well. This book is hilarious, even if you don't knit (or so non-knitter have told me). You can also see my Stitchionary from Julia and Jason which compliments my book of sweater patterns so well you'd think it was planned. I love this book, I need more now. And then you have my Spiderman stationary from Jim and Jenn because in these pages I will write even more about knitting and mail these letters to my friends all across the world. And this blog entry took a really long time to put together and I am soooo sleepy so I am going to bed now. Kisses!
*grammatical errors will be dealt with at a later date so keep your tsks to yourself
*I never said I wasn't spoiled
*and I just realized I should have included the hand knit massive beautiful hand dyed blue shawl my Mother knit me for Xmas. Boooootiful. There will be photos of that too.

'Deep Thoughts'

So I've been having quite 'deep thoughts' lately. The thing about the new year is that it's also right after my birthday and this was a rather milestone birthday (the quarter of a century one) and with my tattoo which was pretty important to me getting finished and healed as well so I've been thinking many pensive and epiphany-wannabe thoughts. Here's a list of all my deep thoughts cause I still like lists- that hasn't changed.

• I felt different at school yesterday, my first day back, and a good different- maybe because I'm graduating or cause I was still coming off my hordes-of-vancouver-yarn-high, I don't know. It was fun. I hope it lasts for at least awhile. Oh, a good example is when some random person I didn't know was rather rude to me, and instead of picking a fight or feeling sad, I just was cool (I can be cool you know) and at a later point in class let it slip that I have four tattoos and oh yeah, that's right -I'm so cool! It's funny because I don't think amount of tattoos define someone's coolness, but luckily for me, everyone else in the class did. Heh. Yeah. So there's that.
• I just sat down and finished three yarn projects tonight! Don't worry- photos later (see end of blog for details) but I mean... wow! A baby hat, a shawl (kinda small), and a scarf! This will be documented later because I do want to keep a tally of my 2007 projects ala Wendy, but instead of a gazillion fair isle sweaters, it will be... well.... me stuff. A very good start to the new year I believe. The shawl was started and finished this year, and it's more of a scarf, it was suppose to be shawl-like but it's more like a small square which I'll pile around my neck like a scarf and pin it. Seriously, booootiful.
  
• I cleaned my room. If you know me, than you know that this is no easy task. And by clean, I mean clean. This task is so signficant, it too will be a blog entry (I took photos). I also organized my stash (sooo much fun). It was like a cleanse, a non-icky cleanse of happiness. My art books are now all in a line- lovely.
  
• My friend Jade called from France! It was so great to hear her again and it was so lovely because we hadn't talked for so long. This caused me to think about all the friends I need to see this year. I'm planning another trip to Vancouver to see some friends, and another trip to the east coast to go to friends wedding and hopefully see lots of my katimavik friends, and my cousing is getting married this year too, I know it's a small wedding so I don't know if I'll be going but I definately want to see my cousins this year, and yeah. Getting back in touch with a lot of great people that I love a lot.
  
• Check out my horoscope from Aunt Purl! 'I love me some Capricorns. I have all kinds of Cappy friends, and my Dad is a Capricorn, too. Your 2007 is marked by change, good change, and I keep reminding myself (so I will remind you, too) that all change -- even when it's awesome, and expected, and anticipated -- creates stress. It's just stress. You don't have to plan it away, or worry it away, or decision it away. You can actually have stress and that's it, no to-do list at all. Of course, you are a Capricorn so you would shoot me if I just left you hanging there. Your 2007 To Don't: Don't rush headfirst into a thing just because you have the deep, scary sense that life is careening along out of your immediate control and you MUST MAKE A DECISION NOW. Truth is, this will be a busy and chang-y year for Cappies, so you're going to feel crazy sometimes. Don't make decisions just to assuage your crazy self. To Do: Breathe. Roll along with it for a while, see what your options are, and when you start feeling pressured (ya'll always put more pressure on yourselves than anyone else does!) make it your absolute priority to have some quiet time to think. Your one best asset this year will be your brain, use it! Your second best asset is your heiney. Do with it what you will.'
• That's right people! My heiney!!! Woohoo!

I have some photos to download before my next blogs entrys, one will be on my clean room (CLEAN), one on my xmas yarn (and yarn related items), start my 2007 FO entries, and another one will be on the successful knitmas 06. And now I am tired. Did you read all my deep thoughts? Thanks!

Hesitant Hopeful Anticipation

I have some hopes for 2007. I have some really neato courses next semester (education, creative writing, and history of feminism), I'm graduating, I have a flaming kick-ass new tattoo, I will be applying for education programs (3 of them-I try not to think about it all too much), I'm swimming (hiatus for a bit cause of the new tattoo but you know), both my sisters are married (such a relief- I was getting concerned), & I have so many amazing yarn-knitting project lined up I may just go mad (sea silk, lots from fleece artist, sooooo much tweedy wool).

Why, Xmas you say? It was wonderful, I won't list all my presents right now cause I know I'll miss some but there was mucho yarn, books, toys, and even some Spider man themed stuff (mmm... Tobey). My birthday was also wonderful. It was quite neat, I had two gifts from two different parties that complimented each other perfectly without any planning!

Now I'm in Vancouver. My sister, Hoobers, got married today to Jason (no fun name for him yet) and it was wonderful! More about that later. The party still hasn't happened.

Just wanted to blog for the last day of this year. I don't really do New Years Resolutions much, I just do what I always do, all year long, which is.... 'next month, I'll do-' and for next month, it's keep better track of my finances cause I choked twice this month when I checked my balances, and be better with working out. That's about it.

Happy New Year!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

End of the year meme

Taken from Jenn, who took it from the Bears, who took it from Alisoo.

1) Harken back to your archives.
2) Collect the first sentence you wrote every month for the whole year.
3) Entertain us.


Spoiled I tell you! Heh. It's been a fun week. So... do you remember that whole fiasco like three weeks ago or so about a paper that I stressed out about then realized it wasn't due till the next week? I have had a very productive morning, just not necessarily schoolwork wise, though I did go to one of my classes! So I ordered a book on Amazon last week, I think it was Wednesday or something, and today I see a mailpost van in the driveway and I run out all excitied cause I'm like... wheee! There is a sale currently at the yarn store (I wish Darlene had a website in which to show all of you) but anyhoo, there is a sale currently so I went a little bonkers today. IT'S CANADA DAY! So... I've been back for a week. Two days before school starts and I get a coldsore! But then again, travelling on Greyhound is always fun. So you see the time for this blog? Only 24 days until my birthday, have you gotten my present yet?



I may do this again with titles, but for right now, back to the monkey! I have one arm and hand done, stuffed and sewn, the body is stuffed and sewn, the head is stuffed and sewn, one arm is knit, one leg is knit, the tail is knit, so just the other hand, the other leg, the two feet, the muzzle, and the ears. Oh yeah, I'll finish tonight.

that burning itching sensation

Don't worry- I haven't caught anything nasty- it's just that fun new-tattoo-itch that makes you want to run into walls that I am suffering from. I think it's worse than usual (this is tattoo #4) because I'm so stressed right now. I'm not sleeping very well and I now have two, yes, TWO cold sores so I may spend tomorrow locked inside the house like some loathsome beast. My neck hurts from all the computer work so even though it sounds nice, I think I will spend my first few days of freedom doing other things than playing Sims2 (we have pets now!). I have a lot of knitting that I need to catch up on and lots of reading as well (good reading, not journal article reading). Oh right, back to the new tattoo. I'm going to be a bitch and not actually post the entire tattoo because, this may be stupid but, it's my own design (drew it in english class) and it's so important to me that I don't actually want to post it online. If you know me, send me an email and I will send you a photo of it. Just not right now cause it's still healing. This is a small picture of it without the colour in yet.
The colour is amazing, the main colour is a sky blue but it's highlighted in dark blue, pink, purple, and white. It's a star by the way. Goodness my skin looks blotchy in that photo. Anyhoo, just thought I would blog. No knitting to show. I'm still slowly getting some of the body of my sweater done and working on the second sleeve. I also am knitting something for my tattoo artist, Thomas of Happy Monkey, a monkey (no really, he loves monkeys) because he is amazing and did an unbelievable job on my tattoo. It'll be a pirate monkey too! grrrrr. The paper is due on Thursday, I'm done the results section and am slowly wading through the lit review and the discussion. I'm not too concerned about the methods because I'm nearly done and then just the references and fixing up the abstract. The results was the major part of the paper and I'm happy with it. It's 9 pages single spaced so I think the paper when finished will be one of my longest yet. My longest paper was 36 pages and that nearly killed me, which is like this one. Though it does seem that the papers that kill me are also the ones I care the most about. Blah blah, I'm ranting. Away I go to sleep and try to have the same dream I had on Saturday night about being a rollerskate superhero. It was bloody awesome.

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Calliope and Stompy and I are so happpy! The new knitty is out! I currently have three projects on my needles (sweater, monkey, & sock) but as soon as I'm done one of them then I'm going to start an army of Sheldons!
And when that army needs some friends to party with, I'll knit an army of Norbertas!
And when I'm am done knitting lovely creatures (does one ever truely finish knitting lovely creatures?) these two ( eiffel and emerald) will be added to my sweater queue.
And this scarf will hopefully be mine before the new year cause I mean... OHMIFREAKINGGOODNESSILOVETHISSCARF!!! And now the Bears and I are going to go to sleep because I worked today and it's not easy rearranging puzzles for seven hours. Aren't you excited? I'm so excited. Bounce bounce!

ps-Spike blogged.

Politics and sports

is all that is on TV today! Crap and double crap.

Just a quick blog about the mass amount of knitting I've done since last night and this morning. I knit and knit and knit and have little bruises on both my fingertips from the needles all to finish a Christmas present. This particular present is knit in 5 identical sections. I mean, I've knit it before so I know how it goes so I didn't bother to look up the instructions again. Foolish, foolish Leone. So, guess how many sections I knit? 6. Yup. About an hour of extra un-needed knitting that I now get to frog. Excellent.

It's okay to put vodka in your coffee at 1:30pm if you mess up knitting right? That's a given isn't it?

November-we hardly knew you

Only 24 days until my birthday, have you gotten my present yet? What happened to November? Seriously! Last thing I remember was Annika saying it was NaSomethingOrOther month and she needed topics. Job well done by the way Annika! Well, when you spend the month either writing papers or doing everything you can to avoid writing papers (most time spent in the second option) I guess it goes by kinda quickly. Do you like the lily? I forgot about all the photos I took of Jenn's beautiful flowers. This one grew right beside the bird bath. Sooooo pretty. Below is the toque I knit last week, it's not finished in this photo but you can see the beauty that is the yarn. Hmmm.
School is nearly over. I finished one class today and just have one exam to write (not a concern) and a final paper for my methods course- which may end up killing me but meh. I only have 1.5 Christmas presents left to knit and I'm also hoping to finish my sweater so I can wear on Christmas too. I've about four inches done on the body and only a third on my second sleeve but I'll get more work done on it as school is finishing up. Darlene, my friend who owns the yarn store here, now gets fiddlesticks, oh my oh my. I already had one of these, but I had to get another one (I now have plum and violet), and this pattern as well. I'm sure I'll get lots of knitting done with my helpers, here's Chuck helping me measure things.
Okay, bye for now.

too damn cold

So I've got my coffee, my sister's laptop, two kitties, and a view of the outside that makes me think.... I'll just stay here thanks. It's the still mute blue outside, everything looks frozen and sharp. Brrrrr. The picture isn't of this morning, but it's the same hue.

So my second out of three papers is due today. My first paper came back with an A and the comment that if I had proofread better and not made so many grammatical errors I could have gotten a better mark, which is funny because I am so happy with an A. All my grammatical errors were tense problems as well, not spelling or contractions or anything. This paper right now, I finished last night, is due at 2:30 today and I've got way too many words. I may be able to slash off a few hundred words while editing and try to get it down to 2200, since the limit was 2000, and I know most profs do the 10% rule; however, I refuse to edit the animals. My paper is on global warming so I was really, really, really depressed yesterday. I based most of my research on this book, I highly recommend it. Even if you don't have time to sit down and read the whole book, it is a book where you can just read one chapter or skip to chapters. Very good. Anyhoo, I did way too much research *sigh* and I answered all the critieria for the paper but I know I went overboard and the impact this is having on the animals. Don't care. People need to know about the Polar Bears! It breaks my heart.

Okay, I need to stop blogging and start editing.

22 weeks to go

till the last week of finals for the 2007 winter semester! Can you tell I'm excited to be done? Well, done one undergrad degree at least. Just two years for my second one but I believe my education years will be, probably harder, but better because I care about being an excellent teacher and currently... my passion for physical science and correctly writing papers in APA style aren't as high on my priority list as they could be.

Even though I have a billion things (well, two plus my sweater) to knit before Christmas and tonnes of schoolwork and my room is a complete disaster, I think I'm going to knit myself a toque tonight. I don't like any of our toques right now, some are too tree huggerish and others just aren't me, so I have this amazing wool slub from Fleece Artist that's all shades of deep purples greens and such that would make a wonderful toque... that is if I can knit it without turning it into a disaster. Toques are suppose to be easy but the two I knit for my Uncle Dave are such jokes. I really should knit him another with a pattern so he can wear one of them.

Spike blogged by the way. I told him he should blog more next month and he's dedicated himself to blogging four times next month (well, I also bribed him with Tuna). He really likes all the comments.

I don't have any photos to show right now. My sweater is coming along a little slower than before because I need to finish my two Xmas presents soon. I started a journal for my knitting and went a little crazy with the stamps but it's all good.

Crazy student knitting girl rant over.

mosey along

You ever have those pointless days? You know, those days where nothing outright bad happens, but every action seems to have no point? Where, instead of staying in bed, you should have just stayed home and done stuff there cause you would have gotten more done? Cause last weekend, I did so much with a three day weekend. I did laundry, I did the floors, I vacuumed, I wrote long emails to hordes of people, I talked on the phone, I rearranged my room, and I had a lot of quality slacking off time. Today... let see here.... today I walked to a meeting (45 minutes altogether) and the other person wasn't there (pointless), walked to the bus stop but I had just missed that bus so I decided to keep on walking instead of just standing there (another 30 minutes) got to school, than walked up four flights of stairs to pick up a homework assignment that was suppose to be outside my prof's door but it wasn't (pointless)... yeah. Should have stayed home and knit. Okay, and the finale to all this is I'm going to meet someone after school that I don't want to meet. Peachy fucking keen you know? I may have to be mean.

*warning* the usual undergrad anst rant ahead

So I had a major rant in the kitchen today, even though I was the only one there (the kitties were in the basement and the bears were in the living room), you know-those crazy person rants where you get angry and just get louder and louder then you realize that you are crazy and go back to washing dishes. So yeah, I'm bitter. I want to be a teacher now! Now now now! (chanel that TNG episode where Picard turns into his 12 year old self and throws a tantrum) It's like, why do I have to finish my bachelors? I am smart enough and passionate enough to be in education this moment! And I'm not saying I have what it takes to be a teacher right now, but I want to learn, I want to be learning how to be a teacher now. *pout* So yeah, there we go, I'm done now. Oh yes, and I know I have grammatical errors in my blog, I blog how I think, I won't teach people how to write how I think- obviously, cause that would be bad.

So I haven't posted for awhile, it's been a very busy week. I started both my volunteering jobs this week. I mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, which is just once a week I go into a school and meet with a 'mentoree' for an hour, we do crafts and fun projects, I've done this before and it's gobs of fun. I took care of the infamous Cohen this week for his parents. We had lots of good times, which involved eating goldfish crackers on the couch while watching TV, running and chasing, and spitting chewed food out of our mouths onto our laps (that last part was more Cohen than me). We had a wonderful time. I also had a tonne of assignments and quizzes this week so it was busy school wise as well. Oh yeah, and it snowed.

And it hasn't stopped. It just keep on snowing. Jenn was away all week so there was a lot of walking in this so I also got my exercise. I only lost my boot twice (then I started wearing two pairs of socks) and I never fell! I have been stellar with my knitting in the past few weeks. I have finished six projects! Now I am down to three projects on the needles, one that is dangerously close to becoming a stalemate (the fuzzy blue sparkly scarf from the last photo blog entry). So these next few photos are of my boootiful lace scarf that I started in March, it's the trellis scarf from the Spring 2006 Interweave and my first lace project. It's knit in a lovely egyptian cotton that was too slippery for bamboo needles so it was kinda stressful to knit sometimes. So, the Bears are posing for me for the first photo with it, thanks Bears, and I have a question... the first photo of the edge is the cast on edge, and the second edge is the bind off edge. I kinda like the bind off edge better. If I knit this again I'll do both ends like that I think. What do you think?
So yeah, cast on edge...
And the bind off edge.

So guess what? See all this yarn? Aren't they all so pretty? Don't the colours go together so very well? There are an additional six skeins of the brown that aren't in this photo (do not ask me how much I paid for the yarn... not that it was over priced, just that I bought a lot), so yes, it's 100% wool from Romania, and it's like soft kitten love fur. So yes, lots and lots of yarn. Hhmmm... I wonder... Oh, what are these? Lovely little swatches. The skulls are my design. Don't you just love them? Why, what could I be doing?

And look at this mess! Needles of every size, a massive chart of skulls (did that myself thank you very much), a calculator, a gauge, pencil crayons.... I'm knitting a sweater! It's roughly based on this pattern from Interweave but I've switched the gauge (hence the calculator) and the design (hence the skulls) and the yarn but beside that, yeah! I've always wanted to knit this sweater, I wasn't planning on changing it so much but when I saw the yarn at Darlenes and I only wanted some of the colours and then I thought, heh... skulls.
So here is my sleeve! That's my toe by the way, that picture looks freaky to me. I started this last Saturday after visiting Darlene and phoning her a few times. It was stressful.


Here is my progress at about Thursday, the pink and the beige skulls blend together with the photo but they are distinctive in person.


And as of last night! A whole sleeve done! I know for some people that a sleeve in a week isn't much, but this is a whole lot of intarsia (I wanted to do fair isle but I would be carrying too much thick strands in the work) which involves a whole lot of weaving in ends. So yeah, 3mm needles, following a chart pattern, and weaving in... are you sitting down?... weaving in 82 ends. 82!!! I'm so proud of myself. I have this messed up idea while I knit that this is a profound and unattainable goal that nobody else could ever achieve or comphrehend the amount of work this is... then I go online and read blogs and realize, while this is a big thing, and lots of work... I'm not quite the only one who knits sweaters. Maybe. In other none-knitting news, I moved my room around again and put up some decorations I bought at a craft fair a few weeks ago. They are beautiful fused glass stars. I love stars. I couldn't find my fishing line but I couldn't wait so I just used white thread. What do you think?

Okay, have a good day. (those are ladybugs by the way)

I Can Rule The World!!!!!

So you see the time for this blog? Eh? That's right people, it's 6:09am and I'm totally hyper! Oh yeah, and when I got onto MSN the headline was a picture of Tom Cruise with the words 'He's just not sexy anymore', mwahahahahaha! Made my morning! Now, since I would normally be sleeping right now, this is totally 'free' time. I'm not going to knit cause I don't necessarily trust my senses right now I could mess up some stuff, and that goes the same for drawing, so I'm going to play sims! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee! And then, at 8, I get ready for my day, and even though I will have had played games for nearly two hours, I'll still be starting my day earlier than normal! Freaky. Okay, my coffee is ready so away I go!

Photo happy knit blog entry

So since I'm really behind in my blogging, I figured lots of photos will make up for it right? So right, yeah, lots of photos! First is my Grandma's toque that once again reinforces that I need to follow patterns for a little bit longer before I just rush off all happy into my own little 'why, I'll do a gauge, but then I'll change my idea, and disregard the gauge, but I won't do another gauge, cause I mean, I already did a gauge so....' It still is really quite pretty isn't it?

I had to introduce another yarn because I realized for the incredibly large head I was knitting for, I was going to run out of yarn. The green is a wool/acrylic blend and the autumn coloured yarn is 100% merino, and as it turned out a tad thicker but it worked out. This picture is when I marked the areas for decreasing, where I contined the thinner cables. I will admit I am really proud of the organization of the toque, even though I made it way to big, I will knit it again definately.
I'm missing a photo of the decreased part, but I'll take another photo of it on my Grandma's head at Xmas. Sidenote- my Grandma has assured me I don't need to worry about her seeing these photos, since she doesn't even go near the computer. This is the toque after all the knitting, in order to do the size thing I cast off a big chunk of the cable, still trying to keep the cable pattern. It still was too large. Meh


So this is the streek I sewed in. I sewed two lines and sewed over the lines twice . I was concerned because most things I've read about streeking involved really fine yarn so I was worried about the bulkiness of the yarn causing badness afterwards. You know, after I cut into my beautiful hand sewn cabled toque. And here I am cutting! Aaaaahhhhh!
Eeeeeeek!
Gasp!

And here's a fuzzy bad lighting photo of the finished toque! Wheeeee! One may be saying... why doesn't Leone just take another photo of the toque? That's because it is wrapped and already at home for Christmas. Don't worry, at Christmas you can get photos of the toque and my beautiful Grandma too.And just when you think 'wow- you did that all on your own?' But no! I had helpers! Two of them! Two amazing helpers! And they help at every stage of the knitting too!
And we interupt this knitting to bring you hot chocolate cake! Oh that's right! HOT CHOCOLATE CAKE!!! And here is the newest introduction to out family. My swift (for those who you know, aren't preoccupied knitters, a swift is a knitting tool you use to hold your shank of yarn and rotates it so you or a ballwinder can put it into a nice little tidy ball of yarn). My swift may not be spectacular, but it was a free generous gift from a knitter who I've never met! Her name is Grace and she saw it at a garage sale for 2$ and couldn't let it go, so she bought it and brought it to Darlene's yarn store and Darlene knew I wanted one so she gave it to me! I carried this sucker six blocks home. I loveth it so. I have also bought a new ballwinder that winds the yarn so you can pull it from the center and the outside... I know you knitters out there understand how great that is!
The above is a picture of the swift with yarn on it, the top swirly moves up and down to the length of the shank. (I hope shank is the right word for yarn coiled like that, it could also be skein I think) That's my beautiful alpaca, mmmmmmmm. And least we forget, my helpers. This is the first skein of yarn I put on my swift which of course was the only one I've tried that has turned out to be too large for the swift. It's hand dyed 100% rayon, like caaaandy. The kitties were so pleased I brought them back another toy to play with (you should have seen them when I got the ballwinder and swift going, poor Chuck nearly went out of his head).

So these following photos detail a conversation between Spike and I.
Spike: Just turn away okay?
Me: Spike...Spike: It calls to me
Me: No it doesn't. Don't be bad.

Spike: this thingie here swirls if I hit it with my paw!
Me: you are just so bad.
Thus mostly ends my insanely knit photo blogness. I will end with my current (one of) project which I have very mixed emotions about, but it's fun to knit. I promise to have a more actual word blog entry about the other things going on in my life, like you know, psychological journal articles that go on and on and on and on.... and on........

School? Nope- doesn't ring a bell.

So over here in denial land, I'm doing quite nicely thank you! I've done lots of knitting (one glove down, one more to go), lots of shopping (two winter jackets! Two, mwahaha), lots of coffee (wheeeeewheewheewheeeeee), lots of sleeping, reading a fasincating book called The Girls-more about that when I finish it, lots of visiting with friends and chatting, lots and lots of eating (I think I can honestly, without a doubt, say that I have consumed more sugar in my time here than all of September combined), watched TV with the Bears, and have also gotten my hair done. And by done, I mean streaked. And by streaked, I mean my whole head in reds, browns, coppers, and a few dark blonde streaks as well. I also got it cut- I have bangs! They are sooo cute. Asymmetrical in length and volume! My most amazing hair ever.


School?



What school?

Oh, you mean that homework assignment due tomorrow on a chapter I haven't read yet and still have to email to my friend, the interviews I need to type up and code and write on, the five journal articles that need to be 'thoroughly analyzed' by Monday, and the quiz I will have on Wednesday?

Mmm... don't know what you're talking about.

I'm going downtown soon! See you later!

So... that was fun

But then again, travelling on Greyhound is always fun.

Yes, I'm now at my original home, living off my parents for a week and pretending I don't go to university. Instead of a black and white Spawnkitty (he posted by the way, around a week ago), I have a black and white Snazel kitty who is very loud. Very very loud. I also have two bears with me: Ellaphante, who is a not a New York bear but has never been to Vernon before, and Spike! They are watching TV with my Dad right now, still a little groggy from the trip.

Just a short blog before I go watch Jag with my dad. I just wanted to let you know the oddities of this particular greyhound ride.

So I'm in line for my bus ticket, it's half an hour before my bus leaves, and the bus terminal is uber crowed, and of course, you have your typical greyhound bus residents: the child from hell who is way to young to be exploring* the terminal by himself but his mother is busy doing nothing to pay attention, the scary looking massive man who is drunk who goes straight to the front of the line to get his ticket, the people who don't necessarily speak the best english who are arguing with the one person selling the tickets, and the scary people who you just don't make eye contact with.

Anyhoo, the line is barely moving, and sure enough, before I can buy my ticket they start loading my bus. I've got a little panic flutter, no biggie. The line starts to move faster after some troublesome customers, so I try not to panic. Then-woohoo- get my ticket! Then I turn around and see the line up for my bus that is massive despite the fact that the bus has been loading for quite awhile now. Not good- but I figure, I have my ticket, they can't take it back now! But I don't really know that for sure so I'm still kinda worried. Finally, the bus driver takes my ticket and I board the bus... second to last person to get on the bus. The bus looks like a really bad movie or something. People have walked to the back looking for seats and are now walking back up the aisle, and the bus driver has already given up the two reserved seats for his belongings. There is a vacant seat right there, right at the front, so you are looking out the massive window that the bus driver looks out, and the lady has her purse all over it.
me: is anyone sitting there?
her: no (doesn't move purse)
me: can I then?
her:... (moves purse)
Despite this inital greeting, she turns out to be quite nice and I'm thankful I'm sitting next to her cause I can hear people in the back 'move your stuff' 'not enough room' and other fun bus conversations. This is bad.

But then, complete reversal caused by the crappy conditions! A bus driver comes on and says 'this bus is too full, all of you going to the okanagan get on that bus over there'. So your truely grabs her stuff and is the first on the nicer bus where she gets two seats to herself because there were way more people going to Vancouver and we didn't even have to transfer! HA!

Okay, I'm going to go now. That wasn't a very short blog was it?



*and by exploring, I mean running into people, running in and out of the bathrooms (the downtown bus terminal bathrooms people- DOWNTOWN), knocking luggage over, and opening lockers.

tooooooo much sugar

never offer me free doughnuts

~thanks

I am so fricking happy right now

Do you not love it? Do you not want one? Oh how I love it. I loveth it so. My precious. (you saw that last one coming right?)

I can't seem to find the right info for it because it is technically this link here but mine has 1G, not some wimpy 512mb. Which means right now I have a bloody tonne of songs on this baby and am only at halfway.

It looks like a pink vibrator doesn't it? Heh... but yeah, so wrong.

So I have also gotten to do the meme I've always wanted to do~ which of course means I can't find the original one I wanted, I found these ones from other blogs after doing a search but none of them were the ones I wanted so I took a few questions from a few and made up some of my own.

Put your mp3 player on shuffle and whatever song comes up is the answer to the question (I'm not going to do the classical ones cause Allegreto #7 doesn't really seem all that fun of an answer). No cheating! Then the final ten songs I will only put the first line and see if you can guess them- I don't know if enough people read my blog to make the last meme work but it's my blog and my MP3 player so I'll do it anyways.

Describe yourself:
All I Really Want~ Alanis Morisette
How do you feel about yourself?
Dying~ Hole (um... ack)
Describe an ex-girlfriend/boyfriend:
Rock & Roll~ Led Zeppelin (sadly but seriously, all my exs are so vanilla)
Describe your ideal girlfriend/boyfriend:
Striptease~ Hawksley Workman
Describe where you want to live:
Stupid~ Sarah McLaughlan (do you think it's stupid because I can't remember how to spell her last name?)
Describe what you want to be:
Use Once and Destroy~ Hole (I need to stop getting this band!)
Describe how you live:
Stairway to Heaven~ Led Zeppelin
Describe how you love:
Try Just a Little Bit Harder~ Janis Joplin
How do you feel about school:
Awful- Hole (I swear on the Spawnkitty this was not a fixed answer)
Share a few words of wisdom:
Going Under ~Evanescence
Do people secretly lust after me?
(Okay, the first one was Amie by Damien Rice but that is stupid so I'm pressing it again)
Freakshow~ Ani Difranco (not much more sense, but better) (Oh, and the song Amie by Damien Rice isn't stupid, it's great, but not as an answer)
How can I make myself happy?
Mariner's Song- Cowboy Junkies (marry a fisherman?)
What should I do with my life?
softer, softest- Hole
Will I ever meet my soul mate?
Cornflake Girl- Tori Amos (yes and no questions don't really work well on this meme do they?)
What is some good advice for me?
Bye Bye Baby- Janis Joplin
How will I be remembered?
Gone- Kelly Clarkson (it's kinda like the player is mocking me)
What is my signature dancing song?
Soap Star Joe- Liz Phair
What do I think is my current theme song?
Joyful Girl- Ani Difranco (wonderful answers like this make the meme all worth it)
What song will play at my funeral?
Icicle- Tori Amos
What type of men/women do you like?
Cherry Popsicle- Jann Arden (Okay, I was so tempted to skip that song because... well, I'm sure you know why)
What is my day going to be like?
(another name song, Isaac by Madonna, going to skip it too)
Forgiven- Alanis Morisette (I'll let you know tomorrow how this plays out)
How are you feeling today?
Roll on Home- Susanna
What is the story of your life?
Never Said- Liz Phair
What was high school like?
Credit in the Straight World-Hole
What do your pets think about you?
Past the Mission- Tori amos
What is in store for this weekend?
You Me and the Weather~ Hawskley Workman
Since you are blogging and not writing your paper, what do you think your comment on it will be when it gets handed back?
Piece of my Heart- Janis Joplin (is that good or bad?)

Some of these are kinda really easy but most of them are kinda hard so I don't know.

1. I don't believe in the smile/ that you leave when you awalk/ and say goodbye
2. you said things I wouldn't say straight to my face boy
3. it's not/ what you thought/ when you first began it
4. oh baby it's crying time/ oh baby I've got to fly
5. take your coat and shoes off/ come and sit beside me
6. How can you see into my eyes like open doors
7. live baby live now that the day is over
8. I don't want to work away/ doing just what they all say
9. I recommend getting your heart trampled to another/ yeah/ oh yeah
10. Got your hand up all in my shirt/and you know that it hurts
    

My shuffle option is leaving out a long of albums, but it really seems to like Hole. I loveth it so.

sushi and journal articles

Wow, I just wrote an entire paragraph then deleted it because it was soooo boring. I'll condense it so it's more reader friendly.

Have a paper due in three days about journal articles about self esteem that were so tedious to read I kinda wanted to kill myself. My experiences with each are as follows

1. fell asleep while reading it
2. took me ages to read because I kept on listening to the conversations of people around me (which I'll mention more later)
3. skimmed in 45 minutes before class but turned out I was one of the only people who even printed it off so we didn't discuss it anyways.
   

In other news, I'm going home over thanksgiving! Wheeeeeeeeee!

Poor baby Spike the Spawnkitty is sick. He was up all night barfing up his new kitty food. When he is sick he likes really confined dark spaces, well, more than he already does, so he was in the hall closet snuggled between blankets all morning but I moved him into his kitty tent and put blankets over it so it was more enclosed. I prefer for him to be where I can see him incase he starts to get sick again. It's really hard to try to make cats drink water. At first I got his paw all wet thinking he would lick it but he just fell back asleep (or feigned sleep so I would leave him alone) and then I was putting it on his nose but I realized quickly if I was to do that again he was going to bite me, no matter how tired he was.

September is evil but that's not your fault so I won't talk about it much. Just know- evil.

Oh, going out for sushi tonight.

Can you people help me? I really need to start exercising again because since school started and I quit work I have not been exercising. I use to walk all the time for hours at a time but now my biggest walk is the ten minute jaunt to the bus stop and the stairs up to Jenn's office. I really want to start swimming but I never go! So frustrating. Did I tell you that I lost seven pounds this summer? That was nice.

And I need to buy a MP3 player. Need you say? Do you really need an MP3 player Leone? Yes. Yes I do. Without one, all I do is become distracto girl, listening to people's conversation, looking at what people are wearing, trying to figure out what they are reading, looking out windows, counting lights, trying to figure out the stitch pattern in my new sweater, etc. With an MP3 player (okay, I know that M isn't a vowel but when I write a MP3 player it just seems wrong, don't ask me why) I can just disconnect myself from everything around me and focus on the task at hand. Yes sometimes I skip a song or I will listen to a song but the amount of work I get done with an MP3 player is stellar. Must have one.

Away I go.

I am so smart! S-M-R-T!

So, you ever do that thing where you kinda spontaneously say something in class and the moment the words leave your mouth you realize how stupid that was but really, all you can do is sit there while everone else in the class systematically tears down the stupid thing you said because it's stupid and you just kinda decide to shut up for the rest of the class?

No, I've never done that either.

School..... right.

So yeah, I'm completely weird and boring right now. The first week of school- I was so prepared, I was ready, I was psyched- nothing happened. No textbook for one class because it has been backordered till the end of the month so no readings and no readings for my other class because I had already read the intro to the book. I only had two subjects last week so I went to four classes and I was kinda bored in each, but I did try. I took notes which quickly turned into scribbling sketches which then would turn back into notes when I would try to get back on track and once again into the scribbles.

And then there is the lonely factor. My friend Kim and my friend Alyson graduated last year, so I have a lot of acquaintences and people to chat with, but not like I can with those two. It really sucks. I pouted a lot.

Yesterday was a lot better. My methods class is ridiciously hard core and there's about three papers altogether, hordes of reading that we have to get done in about 6 weeks because after that is when we accumulate and then analyze data for our final paper so I'm happy with this class because my other two are so low key that I will be able to focus with this class and while I'm sure it will stress me out I think I will enjoy it a lot more than if I was taking lots of classes.

Yesterday was also my last day at work. I go back in December for Xmas rush which I'm fine with.

Just, I feel really disjointed and out of place now, and it's kinda disheartening. Blarg. Oh well, soon I will be up to my ears in journal articles about self esteem so I will feel more homicidal then disheartened. I'm just pouty.

In other news, I finished the cable toque. Sewing than cutting knitting is very stressful but is also kinda fun.

Whose up for some drinks after class? Me! Me!

My body and I aren't talking right now

Two days before school starts and I get a coldsore! Argh! (The massive breakout of zits along my chin are my fault... chocolate bar? What chocolate bar?)

I'm going to make this a short blog as I realized yesterday that my last blog entry was freakishly long and it could be boring-I don't know, it's too long to read again.

Knitting with beads takes longer than ordinary knitting. This can prove really really really annoying; however, continuing to knit a complicated cable toque when you know it's too large may cause you to shun it onto the top of your bookshelf along with the chess set (star wars chess set, thank you very much) and scowl at it from afar.

Last night I had an upsetting dream that was freakishly real and now I don't want to go back to bed.

Tomorrow is my last day of freedom. I'll let you know how that goes.

Eileen, how did your exams go?