a bunch of crap and some links

I decided to get off my butt and take some photos. Alas, none of them will do much to warm Joan up, since it was just at dawn and the sky was cloudy anyway. Still, it's yarn and Bugs and that's always good in my book.

First off, I have some of Judy's Arequipa in the Atlantic colorway. This stuff is so soft I want to eat it. Or stick it in my bra. I rubbed it on Bug's cheek and he said, "Soft for Mama!" Yes indeed, it's all for me! It's being turned into Anne's Gust scarf, and it's so delicious I can hardly stand it.



(Forgive the craptasticness that is that photo. The yarn has a bit of halo, but it's not THAT fuzzy.)

Next up, we have the beginning of the Year of the Hat. This is Cascade 220 Paint in some colorway I forgot to look up. It has plums, browns, rust, and all shades in between, and will (most likely) be a Coronet for SIL R. (The picture didn't capture the colors well - those bright red streaks are actually a muted rust.)



The Bug blows you a kiss.



Joan sent me a little You Make My Day bloggy thing. She said something about my willingness to break the law at her behest. You know, only the best for Joan. :-) So I'm supposed to list 10 blogs that make my day (besides Joan's, of course) and link them for your enhanced reading pleasure. This is hard, since I don't read blogs unless they DO make my day, but I'll try to narrow it down a bit

Here you go:

1. Center of Gravitas. I always learn something, and no one does teh snark like GayProf.
2. Frank Notes. The man is a crafting genius, and I gain a pound every time I LOOK a picture of his cake. (Yes, actual cake, that is not a euphemism, you sickos.)
3. Purling Dervish. For the Def Leppard bed socks alone.
4. Shut Up And Knit. Because it's Cookie. And I like the abuse.
5. Cabin Cove. The colors! The spinning! The asses!
6. Knitspot. I want to be Anne if when I grow up.
7. The Seated View. I hate it when she posts things that make me think.
8. Smatterings and RiverRim. I'm combining these two because I love them for the same reason - the peaceful beauty of the pictures and the amazing work they both make look easy.
9. What Housework. Piggies and cows and peacocks, oh my! And Milo, and pumpkin pie from scratch, and Real Vermonter yarn, and buying local... It goes on and on.
10. Trailing Yarn. I love that she complains about not having enough knitting time and whips out all these (handspun) sweaters all the time.

A little more on that last subject

So, it occurred to me that if I were going to make a point, I would have given it some thought and formed a central thesis with examples, like GayProf. (And my examples should have come from Wonder Woman, to be truly authentic.) Alas, that required work and thinking, and since I was already at work, where I avoid thinking as much as possible, I slapped that link on there and ran away.
I let it percolate all week and came up with precisely nothing new and thrilling.
I shall not bore you with rehashing the same old crap. Unfortunately, I have nothing else new and thrilling either. This last week or ten days has been full of flu, fighting, stupid stupid work happenings (mine and others, and when will I learn that I can't stick my foot in my mouth if I keep said mouth SHUT?) nastiness, and relationship morass, and I am ecstatic to be done with it. January can bite me. Though I gotta say, the DH had a good idea when he presented me with chocolate cake for breakfast. That brightens any outlook. And really, since I am scheduled to be in Disneyland next week, can February start any better?
On the knitting front, I got nada. I have half a sweater front, half a sock, and a new skein of hat yarn, none of which are photographed. I don't even have any new Bug shots. January sucked the life out of me. Maybe this rain will put some life back.

A tidbit of random before I sink back into self-pity.

What does it say about me that I type my own name "pacalagag" more often that not?

Moving on.

Warning: this post is ridiculously heavy on the parentheticals and it's easier to type this warning than to rewrite.

There have been a few posts recently about oh... don't read my blog if you don't like me, don't leave nasty comments, if you hate me so much quit wasting your time here, etc. Having never been in the middle of a blog-related flame war (all my flame wars are work related, heh) I have little opinion on it either way. I read who I like (occasionally skimming if it's a subject I don't care about), I don't read who I don't like, I knit what I want, etc. So, I never gave it a whole hillabeans.

But then I read this. Take out the flippant attitude (but why? that's the best part) and disregard what could be questionable statistics (I didn't bother to check their sources) and you still have what could be considered some very good points that are related to some of the bloggy rants and posts that seem to come about in waves every few months or so.

Seven Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable


Discuss.

(Plus there's a whole set of new cusswords in there that I haven't even seen Rabbitch use yet.)

Flattened.

Wanna see what I knit this weekend?

Not. A. Stitch.

I have been flattened by a heinous bug. Not THE Bug, though he did his best to hurry me to my grave while I was laid low, but something else. Last year when I had no available PTO I was thankful that any illnesses I contracted managed to hit on Friday afternoons. Now that I have some time in the bank, I find being ill on a weekend particularly cruel. I didn't knit OR touch the computer for three days, which of course means I have surely lost this month's trivia challenge to Lene. (I was behind anyway, but the loss of three days of competition has surely put the nails in the coffin, as it were. I knew I was feeling better when I popped awake this morning and thought, "SHIT! I didn't play trivia!") I can hope that she won't rub my face in it too much since I was felled by illness, but I doubt it. ;-)

A is for Arizona!

Guess I better get on this whole ABC Along, huh? (I have totally dropped the ball on the spinning thing.)

A is for Arizona, the state of my birth and where I have lived for about 31 of my years on this planet. It's a deeply conservative place, and I managed to be a flaming liberal despite its best intentions. Southern Arizona, where I live, supports thousands of delicate species of critters from bugs and birds to mammals, and kills hundreds of homo sapiens a year who dare to cross her without adequate preparation. She's kind of a bitch that way.
BUT. She's not without beauty.

From Sabino Canyon:




From my back yard:




My favorite lake:




All that being said, after 31 years I'm ready for a new scene, y'all.

Warmykins*

Yes, I have some photos to make Joan and all your northerners feel all warm and toasty. It's not actually warm and toasty here, but you can't tell that from the pics.
These were all taken as I walked to lunch in the office park where I work. As always, click to embiggen the warmykin-ness of it all.


Look! Grass! And it's green!


A pathetic picture of a purple pansy patch. (Hey, Mel did it, so can I.)


Oleander buds. (I don't feel the oleander love most of the time, but they're some of the earliest flowering trees around here. Most of the rest of the trees are just starting to bud leaves.)


A collection of bright flowers. The big yellow poppy things make me happy.

And since I have no knitting content, I will leave you with this quote my boss said the other day. I can't remember how it came about, but she said, "I'm out of yarn. I am going to work on something else for a while." I will let you ponder that for a minute. Out. Of. Yarn.

*I don't know where I got that word, but I like it and I say it all the time and it's my blog.

Additional randomness

Yesterday, the DH cleaned the back yard. There were a ton of leaves, the dead pool, the dog yard cleanup, etc. The Bug helped Daddy clean all morning, and when it was all done, he played in the muddy water from the pool. No, it wasn't really warm enough to be playing in water outside, but that doesn't stop this kid. I think he was a walrus in a former life.




The havoc wreaking was not limited to outside, of course.
My eyelet sleeve:



Extreme close-up of the problem:



That, my lovies, is a broken cable. [sob]


Last night we went out for a date for the first time in months. (I think we've hired our babysitter three times since the Bug was born.) We went to a bar where our friend's band was playing. They had a guest singer.



I, of course, brought the knitting. Because I am hip like that. Obviously, I couldn't bring the sleeve - too big, too broken, not good bar knitting. I brought the sock I started the other day with my fab Dizzy Blonde yarn that La gifted me over the summer. I was loving the toe, and then I started on the pattern, and another problem occurred.



Forgive the crappy photos - I am too lazy to take more. Now, I enjoy the pooling. I am a fan. I think it's neat. But when one side of the sock is one color and the other side another, I feel like I'm not getting the full effect of the yarn, ya know? Besides, the colors I like best (deep purple and salmon) were on the bottom. Riiiiiiiipp. I had to sit there for, like, an HOUR, and all I had to do was listen to music and drink beer! Oh the humanity!

More FOs. I am on fire!

Actually, I finished the knitting of these in the last days of the year. I just never wove in the ends until I finished the DH's socks, and then I got lazy and didn't take any pictures. This delay works in my favor when I have nothing else to post.

Mad Weave Socks!



Pattern: Mad Weave
Yarn: A Piece of Vermont, a discontinued blend sock yarn that I can't remember, colorway Blue Columbine
Needles: Addi Turbos, 2.5mm
My take on the yarn: lovely, soft, and squishy. A tad splitty in some spots, but I believe that had more to do with the fact that I carried these socks around for EIGHT MONTHS as WIPs without knitting a stitch for a month at a time, than anything about the yarn itself.

Mods:

subbed an eye of partridge heel (loves me some eye of partridge)



and only twisted the little side cables in one direction so as to save my sanity



I don't suppose I need a cat in the house since one little Bug manages to interfere with my photo shoots successfully...



In other news, Ceige has signed up for a knitting class in her town. YAY! In her own words (from a text): "Are you going to tell your blogging buddies you've converted me to the dark side?" Heh. She has no idea...

Random photos, more or less

Three feet.



High speed.



Why I can never find my crochet hooks when I need them.



Concentrating.



I can't effing believe this is my life.



I'm too sexy for my pants.



Star Wars Baby Nerd humor.



Why we won't survive the Bug's childhood.

Shame on me.

For so many reasons.
And I would like to take this opportunity to say that people suck, and I hate them.
But since you are not people, you are Knitters, I love you all and will show you lovely things.
First of all, I have been shamefully remiss in my Warming Joan project. The main reason for this is that it hasn't been all that warm here, but still, I have been tested and found lacking. SO. Sunset pictures. Even though it wasn't all that warm, it LOOKS warm. (Click to embiggen for the full effect of sun-basking. The middle one is my fave.)


Next, I have finished the Husband Socks That Are Way Too Long And I Should Have Married A Guy With Smaller Feet.


Misty Mountain Farms, bought from the Loopy Ewe. (Colorway Sandy something or other.) Pattern my own, toe-up gusset from Widdershins except with an eye of partridge stitch instead of the regular slip-stitch.

This means the following shameful fact:


My sock needles are empty. As soon as La gets back to me, I shall remedy that, of course.

In the meantime, I'm off to work on my eyelet sweater. (That is, after I stop being so angry that my needles would be a danger to myself and those around me, and they aren't the ones who deserve impaling and garroting anyway.) I shall leave you with a Bug pic. Gettin' love from his ridiculously beautiful sister Ceige.



(If you would all take a moment and focus all your knitterly mojo toward Ceige in Oklahoma, I would be grateful. She's the only crafty stepdaughter I have and I'm trying to get her knitting.)

New Year Firsts

It's the new year, and I have some firsts.

First project finished:


Husband sock #1

First project cast on:



Husband sock #2

First dye project:



Leftover MIL cashmere lace, dyed for MIL Mother's Day project

First thing I'll regret later signed up for:



First Bug photo: