I'm a Roving Lunatic!

Blame ZMrK for that pun!

We didn't get much sun yesterday, so I had to photograph all of my fiber purchases from Connecticut Sheep and Wool inside.

This is a nice self-portrait I took at the end. I call it "Yarn, A Cat, and a Girl".



Here's a close up of that yarn. 300 yards of "Zephyr", merino/silk, in a gorgeous color called "Garnet". Purchased from "A Touch of Twist" (Pattersonville, NY).



And from the same shop, 200 yards of "Alpaca Lite" in a gorgeous color called "Red Violet".



I don't remember what vendor I bougth this from, but it's about 4 oz of Corridale roving.




8 oz. of 70% merino, 30% silk in color "red" from Criations of Hampden Hills Alpacas.




2.8 oz. blue angora. The photo does not do this fiber justice. The fact that the fabric I have it on is *white* and not *pink* should tell you something. Purchased from the Mad Hatter Woolery, who do not have a web page as far as I know. They're in Tolland, CT, though.



2 oz. pure white angora top. Also purchased from the Mad Hatter Woolery.



I don't know what the content of this is, but it's hot pink and it's soft and it was $1. There's probably 2 oz. Maybe I can spin it with the white angora.



Alpaca!!!! Don't you want to just dive right in? 4 oz. natural light brown alpaca purchased from Palmer Family Farm of Tolland, CT. I don't think they have a web site, but if you google them you can find contact info.




4 oz. merino/tencel in color "Dusk" from The Sheep Shed @ Mountain View Farm of New Boston, NH. They're going to be at the NH Sheep and Wool Fest, so maybe I should use this to see if I like it.





4 oz. merino/tencel in color "Sunrise", from The Sheep Shed @ Mountain View Farm. ZMrK went off, allegedly "to the bathroom", and bought this for me while I was waiting to buy something else. You know, I would still love him just as much as I do now even if he wasn't such an enabler. But I love how he enables me.




If 50s horror comics weren't so expensive, I'd enable him too.

Now, I'll leave you with a video I made on Saturday, of a sheepdog trial.

I loved a banana because I'm NOT a homosexual!

Type out the sentence you end up with, in the subject line and post it as a comment.

Pick the month you were born:

January------I kicked
February-----I loved
March---------I smoked
April-----------I dry humped
May-----------I choked on
June----------I murdered
July-----------I did the Macarena with
August-------I had lunch with
September---I danced with
October------I sang to
November----I yelled at
December----I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:
1-------a birdbath
2-------a monster
3-------a phone
4-------a fork
5-------a Mexican
6-------a gangster
7-------my cell phone
8-------my dog
9-------my best friends' boyfriend
10-------my neighbor
11-------my science teacher
12-------a banana
13-------a fireman
14-------a stuffed animal
15-------a goat
16-------a pickle
17-------your mom
18---- ---a spoon
19-------myself
20-------a baseball bat
21-------a ninja
22-------Chuck Norris
23-------a noodle
24-------a squirrel
25-------a football player
26-------my sister
27-------my brother
28-------an ipod
29-------a permanent marker
30-------a llama
31-------A homeless guy

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White--------because I'm cool like that
Black---------because that's how I roll.
Pink----------because I'm NOT a homosexual.
Red----------because the voices told me to.
Blue----------because I'm sexy and I do what I want
Green--------because I just gotta be me.
Purple--------because I'm cool.
Gray----------because I was drunk
Yellow--------because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange-------because I just don't like people.
Brown--------because I was high.
Other---------because I'm a ninja.
None----------because I can't control myself

Now type out the sentence you made, and post it to my comments! Copy this to your blog. Let's play!

CT Sheep and Wool Fest

We went to the CT Sheep and Wool Fest today, and I bought almost all spinning fiber, and a couple of small skeins of yarn -- one for me, and one for my downstream Secret Pal.

I will take the yarn pr0n shots tomorrow when we have good sun. It started pouring when we were a couple of miles from home, and now it's starting to get dark.

You can see a slideshow of the all of the pics here, or you can just look at these.











Also, I took a few pictures around my work the other day.









(that's my building up behind the trees)







If you want to see more, then go here, 'cuz I set up a nice little set of Boston photos that I'll update when I take 'em.

I absolutely could NOT make this one up.

I am not shitting you. . . check out this trailer.



Yes, my friends, it's sheep. Bloodthirsty sheep.

See y'all at the Connecticut Sheep and Wool Fest!

No Knitting, Just Nature

Today was a perfect day! It was about 72 degrees, and was a Saturday, so you know what that means, right?

Nature Walk!!!!

We went to Stony Brook State Reservation, especially to see if Turtle Pond lived up to its name. It didn't, at least not today. Perhaps it will at some point, although turtles are usually one of the first herps out.

This is what we did see though:











Yup -- salamanders!! Lots of them!!!

We also saw a few red-tailed hawks but not pictures of them, and lots of cool fungus:



And also, this strange creature:



Hee hee. . .this guy was walking his dog named Remy. Remy obviously has no problems getting wet. He also is not at all shy around people:



He almost jumped on me, twice, but luckily obeyed his commands well. He was all around a good dog.

Kitties were in a real love-giving mood:





We kept the living room windows open for most of the day. I had nearly every window in the house open this a.m. Somebody was real happy with that:



OH!!! I almost forgot!!! We went to a nearby yarn store called Newbury Yarns. The owner recently opened a 2nd store on High Street in Dedham. It's a really nice, bright, beautiful store!! If you are curious, email me (zelia _and_ george at yahoo dot com -- just leave out the spaces and you know the rest!) and I'll give you the address, as I'm not sure if it is on that web page.

And to sweeten the pot of fondling yarn, a few doors down is this. Well, the Dedham one, not the Hyde Park one with the bowling alley attached to it. Maybe we'll hit that one tomorrow when we go to the zoo.

Hold Tight. . .

and imagine a black Charger with a duck hood ornament coming straight at you at 200 mph.

I miss my knittahs :(

Although I don't miss them enough to go straight to Cambridge from work on a Monday night and then hoof it from Cambridge to Roslindale.

What I need is a new, local knit group. I hear there is one that meets at the Pru (where I work) during the day, once every two weeks, but I find the Pru to be unpredictable, crowded, and annoying. Plus, I may not always be able to make it during a lunch hour due to work commitments.

Nope, I need a Roslindale group. I put out some feelers because the SnB Boston Yahoo Group has a group in their database that meets at Village Books on Thursday nights, but I don't have confirmation of it still existing. I may try to scout out some local pubs that may not mind some drinking knitters, and then I can round up my landlady and her sister (both knitters and crocheters), and put the call out to others. But, if anyone knows of anything in Roslindale Village and even around Centre Street, West Roxbury, post a message here, will ya?

A New Family Member!

I'd like the introduce the latest member of our family. . .

Barfy the Bunny



For the first time EVER, I saw a pattern, thought, "Hmmmm. . . I'd like to make that", and started right away.



The pattern in question is "Fluffy the Bunny" from the Stitch n Bitch 2007 Calendar, April 6-8. The pattern calls for regular yarn held together with some kind of fun fur yarn. . . well, the only fun fur yarn I could think of was the Gatto stuff that I used as the trim on the kitty pi bed I made around New Year's. By the way, said kitty pi bed is now sitting on the hand chair next to me, and it's folded in onto itself and looks like a big green felted vagina. I'd take a picture but I'm in the only room in the house with no overhead light, and we don't even have a lamp in here. But I keep glancing over at it and thinking "felted vagina!".

I really should take a picture, though. If Penny Karma can have uvula porn on her blog, I can have a felted vagina on mine, right? Right? Maybe tomorrow I'll treat y'all to it. 'Cuz I'm that kind of tease.

Oh, yeah, and the specifics of my project. Well, Bezzie will be pround because I did this total cheapa$$ style.

The yarn? Banbry Crossing Sayelle Sport Yarn, 100% DuPont orlon acrylic, that someone bought at Bradlees for $0.79 back in the 70s, I'm guessing, by the lovely mustard color, knit held together with a strand of Skacel Gatto in a lovely shade of bile, a yarn that ZMrK won for FREE as a door prize at the Boston Knit Out. I stuffed it with stuffing that I bought at a yard sale last year, and his eyes and nose are buttons from my stash of buttons.

Not to mention . . . ZMrK bought me the SnB 2007 Calendar for more than 50% off after January 1.

I paid full price for the needles, however. I used Clover size 7 circulars (but knit flat). The pattern calls for size 10, but I also think the main color is worsted weight yarn and not sport yarn. I like my guy better.

I did a real suck-ass job at seaming him together. I could blame the lack of light in the room I was working in, but it was really because I was too lazy to do a good job (and it's HAAAAARD to do it and make it like nice). ZMrK thinks he's "awesome" though.

I'm considering making him our mascot, and bringing him along on trips and such. You know, so we can photograph Barfy the Bunny at various tourist landmarks around the world. Or at least on our day trips, you know, when we take nature walks and catch snakes, and I go to take a picture of a garter snake biting the shit out of ZMrK's hand, I can make sure Barfy gets into the picture. Damn. I wish I had made him doing the "thumb's up" sign. That would make it even more special.

I read your blog today!

And yours, and yours, and yours, too!

Okay, so maybe I exaggerate, but there was a point today at work that I was sooooooo effing board and just did not want to do the little boring menial tasks (i.e., preparing files to be closed) that I could have been doing that I started reading blogs and looking at the webpages of the upcoming Sheep and Wool Festivals to see which vendors will be there.

Because I need more yarn.

I really need to get knitting so I can make space in my yarn hutch for purchases I will undoubtedly make at the Sheep and Wool Fests. It's not all about brownies with whipped-peanut-butter frosting, you know. But, oh! those brownies are so good! (They're from Rolling in the Dough, who is a vendor at the NH Sheep and Wool. When I get one, I'll take a picture before it is devoured so y'all can see what I'm talking about.)

So. . . I did get some knitting done this week. I finished a pair of socks!!!







Isn't it cute how Zelia gets into every picture?

The yarn is from Mind's Eye Yarns, and is one of the Sock Club offerings (first, in fact). The yarn I posted about the other day is also from Mind's Eye, as was the yarn I blogged about last month. These aren't available to the general public, but Lucy does have an Etsy shop of her hand-dyed yarns, if you're interested. The yarns are a superwash merino/tencel blend, for those who were wondering (Necia). It's a very fine yarn; I used size 1 dpns for these socks. It split a little while I was knitting but I was giving it quite a workout. I used one of the 12-stitch patterns from Sensational Knitted Socks.

I didn't think I'd like the socks when I was knitting them, because I really effed up a couple of times, but it turns out that I love them. They fit almost too perfectly, if there is such a thing. They need to be worked on and off. The yarn knits up pretty soft and will probably only get softer with washing. The color variation is so subtle, and the yarn has a nice sheen to it.

I'm about to go and eat dinner and watch America's Next Top Model. Boy, that Renee sure is a See You Next Tuesday, isn't she?

Socks

I finished a pair of socks tonight. Pictures coming when I have sufficient sunlight to take 'em, but I'm pretty stoked since I started these in January.

Yay me!

Consider Yourselves Flashed!

Today is the day!!! Flash Your Stash 2007!

This is the first time I've participated, and even though my stash doesn't fill up a VW Bug, it does fill up a queen sized bed:





If you link from the photos into flickr, you can see them in thier original huge size (use "all sizes"). I also added a note into each photo, because there's a little extra surprise in there, if you care to see it.

Boy, blogging before coffee when you have a cold and you were up late at a wedding where the groom did NOT walk down the aisle to "Slow Ride", despite his threat to, is a little difficult.

Even though I had already unpacked yarn into my stash hutch, it was really unorganized and just looked bad. Plus I had more yet to unpack! (Really, an air conditioner box filled with mostly old yarn and acrylic).

So, I organized stuff, with the bottom shelf stuff being what I may use the soonest, and stuffing all the yucky acrylic onto the top shelf. Voila!



It looks organized, right? Does it look like it's all about to spill out on top of me? It might look that way because it is.

I have something more to share. No, that ultrasound is not my baby, and I find it amusing that I got a couple of you with that! I didn't even mean it as an early april fool's joke.

What I mean to share, and I think y'all may feel a bit let down when you find out what it is. . .

is. . .

if

you

made

it

this

far

you

may

as

well

see

the

hidden

extra

surprise

within

my

stash:



Yes, it's Miss Zelia, snoozing among the stash!! Nope, she never moved, during the entire time that I put the stash on her or when I took it off her. This should probably be a stuff on my cat submission.

Now I have to see other peoples' stash (okay, maybe after breakfast and coffee. . . )