Mom is Away…

Mom is scheming for a way to get out of the house for most of the day because Dad brewed up a Porter last night and the smell in the house reminds her of the bottom of a silo that was filled a bit too wet - fermenting and moldy grain. It’s too cold outside to open up and air out so she’s really complaining about that smell.

She is also busy setting up her new all-inclusive blog. She is hoping she’ll be able to post later today or tomorrow with the new web address. She hates to change location, but if the blog is going to contain stuff other than knitting on a semi-regular basis she didn’t think a web address that specifically containes “knitting” in it was appropriate. She did ask me to post the following this morning…

The final birthday month contest starts today. This one will require your thinking caps and your creativity!

I’ll be setting up new categories at the new blog. I don’t want to be old and stale and boring and just use “Knitting,” “Spinning,” “Movies,” “Music” etc. I want semi-abstract (pithy would be great), as short as possible and still get the point across category names for the top level. Below are the ones I’m having the most difficulty with along with a brief description of what sort of posts will be contained in the category…

- About Me (it will just contain stories of everyday life and stuff that gives you a better view of who I am)
- Dyeing (experiements, tips and techniques on dyeing fiber in all forms)
- Collage/Mixed Media/Visual Art(?) (it will contain my collages, my printmaking stuff, art journals, card making, etc. I’m undecided as to whether to have a seperate photography section since that isn’t usually mixed media…)
- Photography (emphasis of these post will be on photographs, I’m not positive I’ll have a section dedicated to this, but it never hurts to be prepared)
- Groups Activities (KALs, things like Project Spectrum, Self-Portrait Tuesday, and CQThursday, Secret Pals etc.)
- Cooking/Baking (share recipes and speak of cookbooks, I quite likely may also speak of cutting fat and cholesterol from recipes from time to time, chances are most things will be vegetarian)
- Traditions (I’m learning more and more about my Swedish heritage right now, but suspect it will also occassionally contain German and possibly a few others cultures at some point, I’ll also speak on just traditions from growing up in Minnesota in this section as well)
- Movies (it will have reviews of movies I’ve seen as well as an occassional list of movies I’d like to see)
- Music (I’ll review new music I’ve acquired from time to time and occassionally review concerts I’ve attended)
- Plays/Theater (we have season tickets to a local theater company and we occassionaly see a bigger production and I’d like to share reviews of the plays we have seen)
- Contests (announcements for comment contests and the like as well as my entries in blog contests as well)
- Freebies (contain free knitting patterns as well as free tutorials on art techniques etc.)

To give you an idea of what I’m kind of looking for, here some of the ideas I’m planning on using for some of the other categories…
- Knotty (Knitting)
- Twisted (Spinning)
- Warped (Weaving - yes, there may be some posts on this in the not too distant future)
- Between the Covers (Books)
- Bound (Bookbinding)
- Boob Tube (Television)

How is this a contest? Give me your best ideas for category names and you are welcome to suggest different ones for those already given. Anyone who gives me a category name (or more) that I choose to use will go into another random number drawing. I’ll choose up to five winners for one of my patterns again! Previous winners are eligible for a second pattern too! We’ll keep this one open until the end of the month, okay? I’ll do the drawing next Monday, May 1st!

Woot We Have Another Winner!

It seems everyone got the picture right, so I used the random number generator to pick a number and the lucky number was 10, which corresponded to Hillary‘s comment. So, Hillary, either leave a comment here or drop me an e-mail with the name of the pattern you would like and I’ll e-mail it out to you. Congrats and happy knitting!

This is just anklet number one. I completed it on Tuesday or Wednesday last week. It has a picot edge and an eye of partridge heel and toe! The yarn is some I dyed with Kool-Aid at the very end of March in preparation for Project Spectrum. It was a half hank of the KnitPicks Dye Your Own with 6 packets of lemonade. When that bath was exhausted I sprinkled 3/4 of a packet of orange over the hank in different places. I would rearrange the hank occassionally during the sprinkling to try get as equally distributed amount of orange on the hank as you can get when you are randomly sprinkling. If I remember correctly I think put the hank in my dyeing mesh collander over the same hot bath that was exhausted of the lemonade and turned up the heat a bit to steam set the orange.

This anklet was my SnB and a bit of TV watching knitting down at the very end of Seraphim when I was into the lace section that required a little less divided attention. I think it makes a fun spring sock. Too bad I don’t have the other one done as we’re having one of our spring storms today. It is super gray and actually snowing out (though none appears to be sticking at this point). It would be fun to have these socks to brighten the day today.

Belated March PS and Another Contest!

Look what I found amongst my birthday cards! It seems since Lauren went to the extra trouble of using an envelope her PS postcard was mistaken as a birthday card and tucked away with the others until the big day. It’s a great postcard of collaged magazine images in the March Project Spectrum colors. Thank you very much, Lauren!

It does seem that my postcard to her did not make it. I suppose that happens from time to time with postcards. But, I did do it digitally in March so I’ll give it another shot. I also haven’t heard anything back from my April pal. Perhaps these are signs that I shouldn’t be doing the postcard swap???

In happier Project Spectrum news, here is this week’s contest - again, for your choice of my sock patterns. Guess what the item in the photo below is. All of the correct guesses will get assigned a number and I’ll use a random number generator to choose the winner…

And the Winner Is . . .

First off, Lizzy B was the only one to guess the right answer! It was my niddy noddy and a cd drop spindle (courtesy of Spin-Off). Of course she had a little help since she had recently seen those at my house :-) But, as I said, all guesses would be tossed in the hat. Mom drew Ann of Purlingswine this morning! So, Ann, drop me a line with which pattern you’d like a copy off and I’ll e-mail it to you.

Thanks everyone for playing!

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Here is a photo of Seraphim as of this morning. Very little was done on it yesterday, just a row and a half. I was a bit too antsy to sit still and knit something from a chart. Though I do suppose the self-control would have been good for me, LOL! The color is a little off there. It’s really a bit darker than that.

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Mom’s plane was 45 minutes late so DH and I both went down and were able to have a leisurely supper before heading down. She had two people helping her out at baggage and later she found out that neither of them even had checked luggage! She totally could have gotten help to the shuttle, LOL! But we did get home almost an hour before she would have if she had taken the shuttle.

Emma and Gaston are doing their best to be friends. Emma did get up multiple times last night and sniffed at their door. But they ate breakfast together (that was somewhat entertaining, but nothing bad) and had a run outside for a while. Gaston is non-dominant and is actually a little scared that Emma will get him in trouble so he is liking to hide under furniture (which is a joke given how large he is). Emma is keeping vigilant watch on her toys, but has now finally quit pacing and has taken her spot on the rug in front of the patio door watching the kids walk to school.

We have no real plans for today yet. I suspect we’ll probably grab lunch somewhere and then get a few toys for Gaston to keep in “his place” in the bedroom. So if he is stressed he’ll have a bone to chew on.

Depending on what mom wants to do and that I may or may not get around to reading blogs or posting here tomorrow and Monday. But I’ll be back regular on Wednesday for sure!

Another Contest…

Since it is my birthday this week, I decided I’d have another contest this week. Do you know what is casting this shadow? If you do, post your guess in the comments and your name will go in a drawing to win your choice of one of my sock patterns. All guesses will be entered into the drawing! The drawing will be held Thursday morning. My mom will draw the winning name.

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Last night was had SnB once again. It was a pretty good night. Cathy joined us and had her Jacob/German Shepherd yarn with her. I thought it felt pretty soft, but the dog was shedding everywhere. Occassionally I’d look over in her direction and there would a cloud of dog fur drifting through the air, LOL! She also brought me some fiber samples for my birthday! Many of them I haven’t tried before so I’m quite excited to give them a try. Thank you sooooo much, Cathy!

It never fails to amaze me the effect one person can have on the dynamic of a group. One person can make the group awkward and full of long stretches of silence and then suddenly as soon as that person leaves the group perks up and returns to their normal jovial and joking selves. It’s truly amazing! I’m so glad that Cathy got to experience our usual group dynamic for at least part of the evening.

I also cannot understand the purpose of coming to a SnB gathering if you are going to play computer games or read a book. Those are not social activities. What is the point? It seems to me if you feel like doing things other than knitting/crochet that perhaps you shouldn’t come to a SnB group. I have my Mondays where I’m not quite in the mood to knit or I don’t have an appropriate project on the needles for knitting in a public area with lively discussion, but I want to get out of the house and visit with my friends. But I sit there and take an active role in the discussion and sometimes I’m flipping through pattern books or doing something at least remotely related to knitting. I’m also close friends with the majority of the SnB gal regulars - we do things outside of the usual Monday night gatherings and occassionally we do couple things as well. So it really is visiting with good friends who really know me and with whom I have things in common. It isn’t a group of people who have nothing in common with me other than knitting.

Enough ranting from me, it is probably back to house cleaning for me… Mom arrives in T-40 hours or so…