Rhinebeck Mayhem and Sock(s)!

Now it's time for a game of "Where's Zanti?"

Can you find me? These are the only two pics we took at Rhinebeck (and ZantiMisterKnit took both of them). This was at the Blogger meetup, which was chock full of Knittyheads. Amy Knitty and the Yarn Harlot were both there, but aren't in either of these pictures.

In case you didn't figure it out, I'm in the middle of both pictures, wearing a moss green Odessa hat. I'm drinking from my water bottle in the second picture. I drank a lot of water that day.

We probably will go to Rhinebeck again next year, but we will have a better plan of action.

1. We will need to bring a cooler full of Diet Coke and bottled water. The lines at the food vendors were incredibly long, and kinda expensive.

2. We should pack some sammiches. The less money spent on food, the more money spent on yarn.

3. We should come in on Friday and stay until Sunday, possibly getting the weekend pass/bracelets.

4. Definitely make plans with other bloggers/knittyheads for dinner, drinks, whatever!

I knew it was going to be big, but still wasn't prepared. Dang. It was amazing. I can't wait until April, when Woolfests start up again!

So, I needed a quick, portable project for the car. I grabbed the only sock yarn that didn't need to be wound (Regia Stretch Crazy Color), some dpn's, and my Knitting Sensational Socks book, and swatched for a pair of socks in the "welt fantastic pattern". I didn't start knitting the socks themselves until Sunday, and I had to restart on different needles because the first attempt was way too big. I finished one sock yesterday:

It laddered in a really strange way. These ladders were from needles 2 and 3 -- in the pattern you have to ssk the end of the pattern repeat, and the pattern begins with k2tog. It gives it a dropped stitch/ladder look where the needles join. I have to be careful when wearing shoes with buckles, and probably with washing too, as those ladders could potentially catch on everything.
I did a new kind of heel (for me). I think the author calls it the "afterthought heel". I like the circle effect it gets.
I don't think these socks are as sturdy as my previously made socks, so I will need to use care when wearing them and washing them. The colors are awesome, though. I may get away with only requiring one 200 meter skein for both socks -- how, I don't know. I guess the combination of the lacy pattern using less yarn and the fact that my feet are so little. I only had to cast on 44 stitches on size 3 needles for these, and they are still a little bit big for me! This yarn does have quite a bit of stretch. I'm thinking of a pair of gloves in a similar pattern -- I liked the way the garter ridges looked on my hands. Maybe I can gift someone with a pair of crazy colored striped gloves.

Hey! I'm Mosly Healthy!

You Are 88% Healthy

Your diet is extremely healthy, and you are very well educated on nutrition.And you eat so well, you're definitely able to have the occasional splurge. So enjoy it!

How Healthy Is Your Diet?

Further, my life expectancy is 94 years (two years younger than a psychic told me in 2001 -- she also predicted my marriage proposal within 18 months).

Thanks for the links, bitterknitter!

The Hottest Rocker on the Planet. . .

Right now, it's Joan Jett.



We just got back from her show -- awesome. She looks great, she sounds great, and her band is great. The set list was perfect: new songs alternating with the classics. 2nd song: Cherry Bomb.

Do I need to say more???

Top Model!

To tide you all over until my next blogstalking or knitting-related post, I am here to tell you about the most genius blog I've been following for a couple of cycles: fourfour's recap of America's Next Top Model. It's hilarious shit, with "Heathers" references to boot!

Oh, and you should read past episodes recaps here. Best recap title ever: Vag Arms and Ham!

Introducing Tempting II

Woohooo!! A new sweater in under 2 months!

Here she is. . . Tempting II from Knitty.com.

Pattern: Tempting II from Knitty.com

Size: Small (to fit a 32-inch bust!!!)

Yarn: handpaintedyarn (from Uruguay, acquired through eBay) -- 2.75 skeins of pink and black and about 1/3 skein of black. It's 100% wool (merino, I think) and is pretty much Malabridgo under a different name.

Needles: size 8, 24- and 36-inch circulars, dpns

Date started: Around August 19, 2006

Date finished: Week of October 2, 2006

I'm not 100% pleased with how this came out. It's really warm and soft, but I think it is a little big and swear that it grew during the day while I wore it. I also think that worsted weight sweaters can make me look a little thicker in the waist that I really am.

I made the small, because I have gotten into the habit of making sweaters in the size smaller than I would normally wear. The small is for a 32" bust. I have a 36" bust. The pattern author (who is modelling it) is about 5 feet tall and 100 lbs. -- I'm not making this up as she has said so on her own blog -- and probably made the XS for herself. I did not dare make the XS because, at 5 foot 3 and one quarter and about 135-140 lbs., I shouldn't be able to wear an XS.

I'm not crazy about the "minimal finishing" that all of this author's patterns seem to have. I believe her stuff is lovely, and this is certain not a diss on her and the techniques that obviously work well for her, but I feel it's easier to just sew the pieces together, rather than knitting nearly everything in the round (and much lighter to lug around!). It just seems more straightforward to me, and you can add to the fact that my picked up stitches almost always suck some major ass. This pattern did not call for picked up stitches, however. You connect the neckband to the bodice by stitching the last stitch of the neckband and the live stitch on the bodice together. You can really see where I did that -- on the outside. The inside -- can you dig it? -- looks perfect. Maybe I should wear it inside out.

The bottom line is, I'll see if I warm up to it, and if it doesn't stretch out more. If it stretches out more, it's getting frogged and made into something felted. Or I can just get fat into it. I think I'm on an accessories kick for a while, in spite of the lace camisole I'm still working on.

Movies, part II

So, here I am with two more photos of our movies! I apologize for how crappy these photos are. Let me know if you have any questions on anything!

This is our Asian collection (top shelf). We have lots of J-Horror (and some K-Horror too), as well as Toho and Toei films from the 60s and 70s. The pink box is the "Pinky Violence Collection". I was a little afraid to get into these because I thought "pink" referred to a woman's body part, but they're not the kind of movies I thought they were. They're awesome. There is, of course, nudity, but it's mostly women kicking ass. My favorite one was "Terrifying Girls' School". It was like "Faster Pussycat Kill Kill" combined with one of those women in prison movies that Pam Grier starred in, except with smaller boobs. It may turn into my favorite genre.

The bottom shelf is mostly US stuff (I think). "May" stands out the most to me in this picture (its to the left of "Pigs"). If you haven't seen "May", do so. I'll warn you -- it's pretty gory, but it's great. It's about a lonely girl who can't seem to find a friend who is perfect, but all the friends she makes are made up of "perfect parts". I think you can guess what happens from there.

The top shelf here is all of our Hammer films (and British films in general). I think we have every Hammer film available. I especially love their period pieces because they turn out such gorgeous sets and costumes. And the actresses usually have big boobs. Yay boobies!!!
I know I'm missing so many of our movies!! I don't have our blaxploitation corner represented here either. ZMrK is going to be so disappointed. Maybe someday when we're watching something, I'll take a pic of the TV screen for y'all.

Well, I have to get dressed because KBH is here and we're going to take some photos in Mt. Auburn Cemetary and go to Octoberfest (maybe!).

Blogstalking: Movies!

Well, I think I'm a couple of weeks late with this one, but here is my post on my movie collection! I'll have to put it into two separate posts because Blogger only lets me upload so many pics, and I'm too lazy to upload them onto Flickr and link to them.

Let me warn you right now: we like horror. A lot. And generaly cult/exploitation film. Chances are, we have half the films that MST3K (and before them, Elvira, Mistriss of the Dark) goofed on, in their original form.

This first stand is all of our French films (top shelf, even though I think one of them -- Crazy Love -- is Belgian) and other stuff below it (such as a bunch of Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi, and William Castle stuff).
This is part of the shelves above our TV center. ZMrK built these. You can probably make out our Ray Harryhausen collection, all of the Universal Monsters collections (except for the Creature from the Black Lagoon ones, because we have possibly better releases of those), a bunch of stuff from Mondo Macrabo (they put out weird, weird stuff from all over the world)M the Dawn of the Dead box set, Freaks, and in the middle of it all, Powder (???).

TAPES! Yup, we still have lots of VHS tapes. Some are old "big box" that have such great cover art, we don't want to get rid of them. Some are signed. Others are things that either haven't come out on DVD yet, or we just don't want to upgrade. This bookshelf also has our "music" DVD. Our Blind Dead box set is on display on the top shelf (near the pics of our cats!).
This shelf is in the library, across from the books. We couldn't fit the Mexican Wrestler Mask with our Mexican film collection, but it fits on the shelf with part of our Italian collection. I'm not sure which country we have the most films from, but I would say our top 3 would be Italy, the UK, and the United States. Any Mario Bava fans stalking my blog? Dario Argento? Lucio Fulci?

Here are the other shelves of our Italian collection: most of the Dario Argento stuff is on the top, with Satan's Crate and the dentist's mold of my teeth (with rubber eyeballs stuck in the middle). We really like Italian horror films.
The top shelf is all our Mexican horror!!! Most of it is Lucha movies (Santo vs. the Vampire Women, etc.), which are really good fun. Some of the films, especially the ones from the early 60s, are downright creepy! Curse of the Crying Woman is one of the creepy ones; La Bruja is too.

Bottom shelf is our TV stuff: Seasons 1-5 of Buffy (in our reality, Tara never died, Buffy sacrificed herself to save the world, there was never a cheesy Buffy-Spike romance, and lame-o Caleb was never the "big bad". Although he was probably less annoying than the friggin' mayor was), a bunch of Brit Coms (Father Ted, Absolutely Fabulous, Coupling), the entire run of Strangers with Candy, all the Family Guy, and Pink Lady and Jeff!

More TV!!! Outer Limits, Night Gallery, Avengers, Freaks and Geeks, Planet of the Apes, Tales from the Crypt, CKY, Kolchack, Lost and America's Next Top Model! (and other stuff I can't read and forget what it is. . . )
One of our faves: Dawn of the Dead. On laserdisc. Signed by pretty much everyone involved in the film. I had to include this because it looks so nice on our wall above the Dick Ayers original art (remember him from last May?).
There is so much more I did not get pictures of: our laserdiscs. Our comedy section -- admittedly, it doesn't take up too much space, but our John Waters is in there, as well as our Mystery Science Theatre 3000. The whole bookshelf beneath that Dawn of the Dead laserdisc, which has the Peter Cushing and Paul Naschy collections. I'm sure there is more! Sometimes I have to ask ZMrK "do we have [insert name of film here]" or "which movie is the one where [insert death scene here]". Movies are as important to me as yarn.

Which brings me to the closing photo: me, in the afternoon of September 24, after the Boston Knit-Out and Crochet Too, sleeping off my yarn hangover:

Everything on my lap and near the cookie monster looking pillow are the freebies we got. The WIP is my Tempting II sweater, which is DONE! I'll take a picture of that soon -- maybe tomorrow.