Fallen Off the Face of the Earth. . .

Or at least that blogosphere. That's what it seems like I did, doesn't it?

I think it's an unfortunate coincidence that I posted about being stung by a bee, and then disappeared for two weeks. Y'all probably thought I was dead. I'm not. I've been meaning to blog, and have had some stuff to blog about, but it just hasn't happened lately. One of the reasons is that I'm on a computer all day at work, and often, when I get home, I just want to go do something else, like. . . I dunno, knit? Spin? Read? Do fill-in word puzzles? Take a bath? Yes, all these, and really, anything but sit at a friggin' computer.

I did say I've been knitting, didn't I? Here's some proof:



I finished this on August 31, while waiting for the bus en route to the airport for my niece's baby shower. No, it's not for the baby, but the yarn is the leftover yarn from the licorice all-sorts hat I did make for the baby. I also made a London Beanie for ZMrK, mostly black with 3 pink stripes, but I haven't got a picture of that.

Or, do I?





Is it sad or funny how I am able to turn everything into a Ken photo op?

(by the way, you can get the Skully dishcloth pattern for free over at BlackRayne. It's a series of Halloween-themed dishcloth; it also has a bat, pumpkin and a cat. It was boatloads of fun to make, takes maybe 100 yards of worsted weight yarn, and you can knit it in like a day. I use mine as a washcloth, since the Blue Sky Organic Cotton I used is super-soft.)

I have more stuff I've been knitting!

My feather and fan scarf is getting longer:



It's gotten longer still since I took that photo last week. I finished that ball of yarn, and will probably be done by the end of the weekend. It'll probably be about 5 feet long (I like a long scarf!), and it is super soft and snuggly. I'll probably get angora bits everywhere though.

Here's a nice detail shot:



and here's a shot showcasing the little WTF! tufts of angora that show up here and there.



The yarn is a bit thick-and-thin (Noro Silver Thaw), and some spots are more tightly spun than others. It's really cool to knit with such yarn now that I've started spinning. I've discovered that I really like single ply, thick and thin yarn. I just feels really good to knit with.

When I am not watching TV while knitting, or knitting at my NEW! SnB, this is what I am doing:



Yup, it's Branching Out from Knitty! It's about freakin' time I knit this. This is what the red laceweight alpaca wants to be, I think.

A few things I noticed about knitting with lace.

1. No distractions! I can't have the TV on, and music has to be as "background music"-y as possible. I knit to the Smiths on Sunday. I can't talk to anyone either.

2. I count my stitches after every row. The pattern tells you how many stitches you should have, and I make sure I do. Yes, it takes a few extra seconds, but I'm not on a deadline with this.

3. I do, at most, ten rows and then put it away for another day.

4. I put in a lifeline! At the end of every pattern repeat (10 rows), I thread dental floss through the stitches. In the event I do mess up (and I could) and have to frog, I can do so and my dental floss will save me.

I have had to resign myself that it is not going to look good until I block it. That has been one of my problems with knitting lace. I didn't want to put in all the time while not knowing how it was going to look. I'm telling myself, "It'll look great. You're doing a great job. If it doesn't look great, frog it!"

ZMrK is going to get new socks soon, too:



I've been trying to ready myself for fall, and have been trying to do some fall shopping. I decided that I want pants but am having a really hard time finding a pair I like. Remember last fall, when the fashion industry was pushing the "skinny pant" on us? Yup, I fell for that one, and bought a pair of black skinny pants at the Gap. Audrey Hepburn and AC/DC told me to, and I obeyed. There's $58 I'll never get back. I still have the pants, but they look like CRAP on me.

This year, it seems as though the industry is swinging the pendulum in the other direction, and everything is "wide leg" (yet really fitted and tight on top). From what I've seen of them, equally ridiculous. When the fuck are designers just going to give us normal pants that, you know, look GOOD on people? And what is up with POCKETS? Everything has pockets right now -- even pencil skirts. I think pockets completely break up the clean lines of clothes, and add extra fabric and bulk. Listen, my outer thighs are FUCKING HUGE (which is why I have such a damned time finding pants), and I like to have as little fabric bulging them up as possible.

And A-line skirts? They just don't exist right now. Bah. They're the only skirts that look good on me.

So, like, it looks like I may be saying "fuck the pants" and making myself some A-line skirts. I did buy some SPANX though, which might help those huge thighs of mine.

I also have one seriously cute cat. Oh! I have to tell you what he does! Well, okay, he has a foot fetish, I think, but it's mostly my feet and it's never when I have shoes on. He stalks my feet, and stares at them, and if he gets close enough, he'll rub his face against them and then grab them and bite them. It's not really so much funny as it is painful. Ouch.

We also found his cat bed moved the other night, which we found odd, but we kinda figured out what he was doing. This morning confirmed it. I was getting ready for work, and he was meowing in the other room, so I called him (that "psst, psst, psst" thing you do to cats, with kissing noises thrown in there, and his name, as if he knows it at all). Finally he comes over to his favorite doorway (which is the doorway to the living room/kitchen) and he is dragging his cat bed along with him, with it in his mouth. Now, I'm not sure if I shared this here, but I did share it on the knittyboard and to anyone else who would listen: shortly after we adopted him, we caught him having his way with the blanket on our bed. On MY side of the bed. He had it in his mouth, and was kneading it with his front claws, which slowly lowering his back, um, "area" onto it. I think he is doing the same thing with his cat bed, which, you may recall, is the kitty pi felted cat bed I made last year and that he has adopted as his own.

Yes, I find that hilarious.



"Okay baby, I'll let you be on top this time!"

(In all honestly, I was going to turn that pic into an LOLCatz pic and caption it, "I haz a armor!" but this caption fits in better with the story.)

Well, I have an assignment to fulfill tomorrow for the new round of blogstalking: who am I? I need to think up something good. Also, I really want to post about the new batch of hamsters on America's Next Top Model, but don't really have time to. Remind me!