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!