Thanksgiving Break Bonus Post!

Good day, folks! What follows is my attempt to make up for the lack of Stitch n' Bitch this week, by talking about all the stitching and bitching that I've been up to so far this week.

I started off the break by spinning, dyeing, and knitting a top-secret Christmas gift for my wonderful roommate, but unfortunately I did not anticipate one minor detail. The colors I chose partially make up the wardrobe of one certain well-known person, and I'm afraid this particular Christmas gift will be interpreted as an homage rather than a well-intended accident. (The following photo is from Google and is not a picture of my knitted object, but I feel as though it gets the point across)

Bob Marley, and all his best-known colors, everyone!

I do have another color in there, but I fear my efforts may not be enough. I have to finish the project first to find out, I suppose. Here are some action shots of the progress!

if by action shot, you understand that it's me taking pictures of my project, and not someone taking pictures of me working on my project...

Here's my freshly dyed and dried handspun- ready to be wound into balls,

and here it is being wound:

I had to sort of improvise with the yarn winder and swift situation. My swift is made from tinker toys, which I dug out of a box in the barn for this very purpose, and my yarn winder is from a lego robotics kit I got a few years ago. It worked alright, especially since the yardage was pretty low.

Look at all those little gears! I love legos, legos are cool. Apparently useful, too!

Here's a picture that I hope doesn't completely give away what this project is. I'm not even sure if the intended recipient reads this blog, but you know, better safe than sorry. Does this look a little too Bob Marley to anyone? There's more blue than the picture shows...maybe that will help. I have recently learned that I am absolutely awful at picking out colors (I realize how this is really a bad thing for an art student to have problems with)-I have a hard enough time deciding if my outfits match, let alone if colors do. I tend to either wear all greys and purples, or attempt to wear the entire rainbow at once.

Fast forward a few days. Happy, joyful, beginning of break was replaced with the beginning of a miniature technology apocalypse. Yes, that's what we're calling this, an apocalypse. It possesses no government, and only one law:


Murphy's law: anything that can go wrong, will- and at the worst possible time.

My beloved blackberry, whom I have loved dearly for the last 3 and a half years, finally acquired a mortal injury: Besides lacking the ability to make calls, I could no longer use the space bar, so texts were difficult as well. Some people got fed up with this, and I had to get a new phone. I'm kind of a sucker for apple tech, so I got an iphone (which I am very excited about, you should know)...it's just that I have this sort of pathological aversion to change, and I guess I just wasn't ready to see my blackberry go. I miss the notification light, and the real buttons, and how even if I turned it off, it would turn itself back on again if I set an alarm, and how there were so many ring tones to choose from. The iphone is pretty, and all the buttons work- plus it makes calls now which is a pretty sweet improvement...and the data thing will be nice in case of emergencies...But I don't like change. Give me a couple of weeks to let the emotional sting wear down. Plus, that thing slides around in my hands like a stick of butter. It just can't stay put. I ordered a case for it, but in the meantime I guess I can only handle it while sitting on the floor. Carefully. Also, I turned the autocorrect off. I've seen the internet, it's not pretty.

First, all my texts looked like this:

But I got better. At least they don't look like this:

I tried for about half an hour to find one that wasn't too awkward to post. They're quite entertaining, but I would imagine not if it happens to you. Plus there's the whole laughter-at-weird-moments thing. Nope, I'll risk extra letters in my words, rather than a miniature computer with a superiority complex trying to mess with me for fun because it has nothing better to do.

Meanwhile, my blackberry is trying to make me sad by still sounding its wake up alarm, and sitting all mournfully on my windowsill...

Aric and I also spent a few days making croissants (it's kind of a process...) but they were done perfectly in time for thanksgiving! The trick is the European butter and special flour.

Actually the real trick is probably not trying to rush the process....

This was our contribution to Thanksgiving dinner! (The cranberry sauce was my sister's)

 And, since I've already sharply digressed from the topic of knitting, here's a really old car!

This is my dad's new pet project: it's 1981 Fiat Spider, if you were curious, which makes it considerably older than me. If it is a mid-life crisis, it has to be the most well planned for mid-life crisis in history, so I'd say it's probably not. What it is, however, is a fixer upper. Besides having no anti-lock brakes (I have a thing about anti lock brakes...), no power steering, no rear view passenger side mirror, and no air conditioning, and no air bags, it also boasts a nonfunctional horn, a ripped soft-top roof, a broken radio, broken heating system, and assorted rusty bits. It is, however, a drivable vehicle. It has 'antique' license plants and everything.

This is what the inner bits look like right now- I have been told they will look different upon completion of the project.

My favorite part is that tangle of wires at the head of the center console...

Hard to believe it drives...but it does. I drove it, even despite its lack of power steering! It does a whopping 65 miles per hour. While I was driving around in the middle of nowhere on a country road, I discovered a very exciting alpaca farm! Alpacas look funny when they sit. I couldn't take pictures because I was driving, but here are some Google pictures to prove that fact:

Look at that! It's like he was just kind of absorbed into the ground. His legs have completely disappeared! His perceived lack of ears is also amusing.

To prove the first picture wasn't just a legless alpaca- another picture.

Having now actually driven a convertible, I can still say that I am not a convertible person. Sorry. Any car I end up buying for myself is definitely going to need anti-lock breaks. Also, a roll cage. Definitely a roll cage.

If you were reading this and thinking to yourself that there wasn't a whole lot of knitting for a Stitch n' Bitch blog, you should know that I agree! It's okay, though, because there's more knitting!

 This is the beginnings of another Christmas present, which is really obvious, but I'm not too worried about this person guessing what his presents are anyways, because he's too busy to think about presents right now anyways. I'm still faced with the challenge of not being able to work on it right in front of him, though. It's slow going, but it will be worth it!

This concludes our Thanksgiving holiday bonus post. May the rest of your break be full of yarn and other wonderful things!

are you guys still doing your thing? Because there's another thing going on...

First, my apologies for last week's bloglessness. I was studying for a surprise Chaucer test (one day's notice was a little scary, but it all ended up okay).

This week at Stitch n' Bitch, things got a little strange. There was another event (one which drew more of a crowd than we yarnies are used to) so we relocated our little circle to the TV lounge downstairs.

We had quite  a few new faces at Stitch n' Bitch, but of course I forgot my camera and had to take pictures with my phone-

Before we get to that, here's the all-about-Clara section!

 Look at that fabulous sweater! I'm sure you'll remember her knitting that sweater last year. Also, observe the ever-lengthening tube, here functioning as a lap blanket!

Here's a candid picture of Clara knitting while waiting for Fred at a music competition. What is she knitting? It certainly isn't the tube. Whatever it is, I'm sure it will make an appearance at Stitch N' Bitch in the coming weeks!

And now, new people!

A suggested title for this week's blog post was "a blind man could see what you did there"- courtesy of these two lovely ladies- Sharon (on the left) and Marita (on the right). They, as you can see, were quite the giggly personalities this week.

This is Woody. Despite my picture, I promise he smiles. I think he wasn't sure I was taking a picture of him. He heard about Stitch N' Bitch through his guidance counselor- I didn't know that guidance counselors knew about Stitch N' Bitch- but regardless, it results in new faces, and new faces are awesome!

Madeline is working on yet another sweater with some moderately scratchy wool yarn- but, like Noro, I bet it'll soften up when she washes it. Mary is working on trying to get her yarn to speak to her. It appears to not be ready to talk yet though.

Katharine has begun working on the sleeves of her fingering weight sweater, and we had two other new faces this week, whose names I forgot to write down. I also have no picture evidence to suggest their presence- you'll have to take my word for it. While I was going around the circle taking pictures, my phone died, in a permanent sort of way (or so I thought...) I tried to take the battery out and put it back in, which did nothing to solve the problem. As it turns out, the battery has exploded internally, and the it can't handle taking pictures any more. It sort of shocked the phone I think, and it took overnight to recover. I also can no longer make calls on my phone, and the space bar has recently stopped working. I've had the phone for longer than I've been at Truman, so I suppose it's about time for it to go. As a matter of fact, I think my dad's about to take me to the AT&T store to pick out a new phone. Field trip! We'll see how this goes.

Stay tuned for my Thanksgiving Break blog post, in which there will be many exciting things!

So- do I put it on my head with the plate still in it?

It's that time again- Blog time! Some very exciting things went on at Stitch n' Bitch this week (but then again, very exciting things happen every week...)

Today, art history was cancelled, because our professor was sick, but she didn't send out the email until about 3 minutes before class started, so I was already up. Lauren and I decided to spend the usual art history time working on our knee socks in progress instead! Knitting, I'm pretty sure, is the best use of a morning ever. Not that I wouldn't just have been knitting during class if it had happened anyways...

Lena has made some pretty considerable progress on her blanket (remember how last week it looked like a scarf? It doesn't anymore!)

apparently, Downton Abbey is a great show to make epic blanket progress during, and apparently, Lena watches a lot of Downton Abbey. (Also, my apologies for accidentally telling who died. I promise I didn't mean it, and I'm not saying it again, just in case. Maybe Lena will forget.)

Katharine is so close to starting the sleeves! At last count, she was five centimeters away- and at her current calculation of one centimeter per hour, I'd say she should be on to sleeves by next week, wouldn't you? It's beginning to look a lot like a sweater!

Mary is having problems hearing her yarn. She doesn't know what it's telling her it wants to be- it's probably screaming at her, but she can't hear it. Here's my theory, though- Since the yarn she's working with is yarn she bought in France, it's probably (no, definitely...) screaming at her in French. She's just not listening in the right language! Also, even if she was listening in french, screaming french people are really hard to understand on a good day, so imagine what screaming french yarn must be like...so right now she's just swatching.

Madeline, after a harrowing journey to find fish food, made some more progress on her baby sweater. I just love that yarn so much! That's going to be one lucky baby.

Unlike Mary's french yarn, the Tube speaks to Clara all the time. See all those color changes? That's not Clara deciding to change colors, that's the Tube telling Clara that it's time for something new. This picture doesn't show it, but the Tube has already consumed quite a bit of that eyelash yarn Madeline gave Clara a few weeks ago. I'm just waiting for the Tube to tell her that it would like some stranded colorwork sections. I wouldn't put it past the Tube.

Katherine is working on a very specifically requested purple scarf for her brother (if your brother asks you for a purple scarf, you make him a purple scarf. That rule is probably actually written down somewhere. It's a nice, wide scarf as well.)

Jordan has finished her hat! Basking in the wonder of not knitting cozies for golf clubs any longer, she went right to town on that hat, and now all it needs is a good blocking...(don't worry, Jordan, blocking isn't hard!)



It was a very entertaining conversation indeed when Madeline began explaining to Jordan the concept of putting a dinner place inside her hat, and steam blocking it using an iron (oh, Jordan doesn't have an iron..)...using the steam from a boiling pot of water(oh...Jordan doesn't have a pot either..)...using the steam from a boiling...pan.. of water. We college students have to get creative sometimes.




I am almost finished with my socks-that-are-to-be-worked-on-between-projects. These socks have been in progress for about a year and a half now, so it's high time they were finished, but on the other hand, I'm soon going to need to start another pair of socks to work on between projects. I'm going to be sitting down to do my sweater math tomorrow afternoon (it's in the calendar), so the sleeves should be back on track soon. I have a pretty strong itch to start some new projects as well- a hat for my head of significantly less hair than I'm used to, two pairs of socks, a wrap (or three...) not to mention the TARDIS blue yarn I'll be dyeing soon. We'll see what havoc I can wreak on the stash this weekend!