Friday Flounce!

I admit to not always being a very nice person. I like to laugh at drama on internet fora. Sometimes it comes out of nowhere and makes me say, "BWAH?"

I think most people who read this blog know that I am a Rubbernecker on Ravelry. Some of the dramas are just too hilarious, too out-of-left-field, too insane to NOT laugh at.

What many people don't know is that I keep a folder of screencaps of some of my favorite posts. I call it my "Rav scrapbook".

I was revisiting said scrapbook, and came across one of my all-time favorite flounces. This one is from at least two years ago, and I'm not even sure I remember what it was about. I believe the original thread was locked, and the OP started a NEW thread just to say what she said in this post. I just had to keep it.

WUT? What in the world could make a person so pissed off that she would start a new thread just to call people twats? What would make her so angry that she would forget her grammar? (Actually, I do think the original drama was about someone calling her out on a misplaced apostrophe, so maybe she wasn't so angry that she forgot her grammar. She certainly forgot her religion there.)

Yes, I thought it was funny.

Sometimes flounces end up on a user's profile page. You gotta get those before the profile gets deleted.

Ah, politics. The killer of politeness. I tend to avoid such conversations, and just focus on the things I have in common with a person.

Good day to YOU, sir!

Rhinebeck 2011!!! Best Rhinebeck ever?

We hit up this year's Rhinebeck as part of a whirlwind October (we traveled three weekends in a row - the other two being to Los Angeles, CA and Parsippany, NJ, which I hope to address in another blog post). It was promising to be a fun time, with about 12-15 folks from the Ravelry Rubberneckers group coming, and most of those staying in the same hotel in Poughkeepsie. We stayed in a different hotel, down the road from theirs, but close enough to hang out.

The first night (Friday) we had dinner at the fabulous Table Talk Diner in Poughkeepsie:



(That's GrannyG/Genny, Minkeswim/Andrea, MaCanary (Bluecanary/Barbara's mom), Weebil/Aileen and Jay, GrannyG's daughter, who may or may not have a Ravelry account.

I must have been feeling incredibly hungry, because I ordered the Thanksgiving sandwich (turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing!) with sweet potato fries, and a beer (Sam Adams):



I ate most of it, but not all, and I felt like I do after Thanksgiving.

The next morning, bright and early, we hit up the Everready Diner in Hyde Park for breakfast and, after a couple of odd turns, found our way to the Mulberry Street gate of the Dutchess County Fairgrounds.

Mike was really excited to be there and finally get another Diet Coke:



There was yarn. Lots of yarn. Amazing yarn.



There was also yarn with hidden messages in it:





And gorgeous finished objects!!! Absolutely beautiful!!!





I aspire to someday knit this much lace.



This is a really cute lacy bolero.



Yup, I should have purchased that pattern. Derp.

This was made out of quiviut! 8 balls of quiviut at $85/ball (show special price):



I should have taken a picture of the whole thing. It was some sort of shawl/shrug with a 24-stitch cable on it, and was absolutely gorgeous but oh-so-expensive. I would feel so elegant and luxurious in it though. AW SHAWN TAY!

Some displays were a little less elegant and luxurious:



Um, yeah. I'm sure this booth got many people taking a photo of THAT.

Of course there were animals! Llamas:



Alpacas:



Sulcata tortoises/alligators/lemurs:




A goat that completely macked on my husband, who was feeding it:


Ridiculous goat!!!

When we got back to our car, we had a surprise waiting for us - Andrea, Pearl and Lisa had left us some gummies:



Mike went for it:



We went back to our hotel, where I ogled my new stash additions:



I do need to photograph everything individually, so I can show it off.



There were more additions made that night/the next day. I may have purchased more this year than I have since my first Rhinebeck in 2006.

We hung out in one of the hotel rooms that night and had beer and pizza:



Both of these are New York breweries. I preferred the Hurricane Kitty to the Bear Naked Ale. I'm not sure if I can get either locally, but I'd buy more of Keegan's beers if I found them. They apparently have a milk stout that is quite tasty (though I'm not much of a stout fan).

The next morning was time for another great breakfast at the Everready before day 2 of the Festival!



And our Rubberneckers meetup at 12:30:



I'm really bad about taking photos of people rather than of animals, yarn, and other stuff. It may be because I'm awkward about having my photo taken, and assume everyone else does.

I did get a photo of Fennel/Jamie getting a photo of me:



I love my friends. We had so much fun.

Getting out of there was a real drag. For one, we were SO TIRED when we arrived at the Fairgrounds that we forgot to turn the car engine off. Yup. Our car sat there, running, for about 5 hours. Thankfully the battery didn't die, and we had no problems getting home except for awful traffic jams.

This is how tired we were:



I passed the time by taking photos of some of my recently finished FOs that I haven't blogged about yet.

This is my Lace on a Train scarf:



So called because I knit most of it on the train. It's from an insert booklet that came with Interweave Knits around 2006 or 2007, i.e., long before I ever considered knitting lace. The yarn is Malabrigo lace in the "Lettuce" colorway.

These are my Thelonius Sock Monsters from Cookie A's Knit. Sock. Love book:





The yarn is sock yarn from Holiday Yarns, in the colorway "Fiji". I purchased that yarn at the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool back in May (I think).

I'm debating trying to wrap up my year of projects since my last post in March. I may have a couple without photos, though. I think it's high time I start getting my words and photos onto this screen again.

Until later!

A WIP and some FOs for the Head

Well, I had some good intentions, right? Now it's been three weeks since my last blog post, and although I HAVE things to post, I haven't gotten off my ass and done so.

I guess I'll WIP it out before I flash some FOs:



Okay, so this is a crappy cell phone photo but it's better than nothing, right? The pattern is called Cross Stitch Cable Beanie and it' a free Ravelry download. I'm almost done with it, so I'll take some good detailed photos of it when I am.

It's for Mike. The yarn is Interlacement Toasty Toes and it's been in my stash since December of 2006. It's about time I use it, right?

I also have some FOs to show. These ones go back to October of 2010, so you can see how lazy I have been.

I have a stack of hats:



I also do not have a good detailed photo of this hat:



It's the Horseshoe Cap from the Summer 2010 Spin-Off. I appear to be the only person on Rav who made it, or, at least when I uploaded it the pattern wasn't in Rav's database yet. The yarn is from a local vendor, Hamden Hills Alpacas, who sets up at the Farmer's Market outside of my building. She also sets up at the Connecticut Sheep and Wool, and at Rhinebeck.

I also made another Foliage hat, this time in chunky yarn (Valley Yarns Northampton Bulky, from WEBS). It's fun for a girl



or a boy!



I also have something else that garnered me quite a bit of attention in late October: BOOB HATS.



Can you tell which one is meant to be the Lotus Boob hat? (Note: if you have never seen the Lotus Boob, you may want to think twice about doing a search for it. The first time I saw it, I had no clue what it was. My first impression was a boob with road rash, and I think I screamed and closed the window. My second impression -- yes, I looked again -- was a boob with beebees shot in it, which is as bad as a boob with road rash. It's neither. It's a photoshop job of a boob with a lotus pod - complete with seeds -- cropped over it. Even after knowing what it is, I don't need to see it again.

The funniest part about these hats is that I made them specifically for Rhinebeck. Mike and I presented them at the Rubberneckers meetup, and minkeswim's baby took the bait when presented with the Lotus Boob, as you can see on my Ravelry projects page. (I made that page public-access, so you don't need a Rav account to see it. I should do that with all of my projects, unless they are SOOPER SEKRIT).

Oh, and I made those with some Red Heart Super Saver that I got at a yard sale a few years ago, and I could only get black Pony Beads in packs of 1,000. I may give both to charity, because the RHSS killed my hands. That's never happened before; I think it's because it's older yarn and thus not as soft as the acrylics of today (I very charitably say).

I decided to cut this short RIGHT HERE, because I realized that I have two more FOs for 2010, and three FOs for 2011 - wait, four!!! FOUR FOs! Can you tell it's been a harsh winter so far? I need to get my bearings, and not write a teal deer post, so I'll do a different post for my 2010 FOs for the feet, and then my 2011 FOs.

Four? Really? And here I was, being an underachiever and only joining the 1 for 2011 group rather than the 11 for 2011 group on Ravelry. . .

Ye Olde Rhinebeck

So, I went to Rhinebeck again this year. Is that a big surprise?

The weather was absolutely gorgeous!



The foliage, as usual, magnificent:





I was feeling pretty excited:



Of course, there was yarn:



My camera (the second digital I've own) is on the fritz right now. It does this weird thing where it turns itself on and off repeatedly, and the only way I can get it to stop is to take out the battery. To tell the truth, I've never been 100% happy with this camera, but got it because I didn't think I was ready for an SLR.

Don't get me wrong - this camera has taken some INCREDIBLE photos, as evidenced above. The best photos it has taken have been in the best possible situations - bright, natural sunlight and, usually, without zoom (although our sister blog will show that some photos with zoom are great). It is not so great at indoor shots with flash, particularly yarn pr0n and project photos, which is why I took so much of my stash and projects onto the porch at our old house. I need to figure out where the best place will be in our new house, and fully acknowledge that the neighbors will ALL think I am crazy. I should just bite the bullet and bring it all to the Arboretum, so all of the Rosi/JP area knows I am nuts (or will want to knit with me).

Holy shit, I just totally digressed there, didn't I?

Hey, guess what? I was able to take some good photos of needlefelted artwork:





Oh, I love the duck!



Dragon already looks pretty bent.



I thought the needle-felted budgies were adorable! I think pet birds in general are very cute, but don't think I would have the patience to own one. They are a little too noisy.

I really want one of these heads:



Obviously, Mike did too:



(As an aside, I wish I had taken a card from that vendor, since she had the MOST LUSCIOUS CASHMERE YARN EVER!!!!! There was a red-and-white mitten that I put on, and thought that I never ever ever wanted to take it off. It felt so good that it gave me dirty thoughts.

There were, of course, llamas:







Not to mention Rubberneckers:



Okay, WTF? Why didn't I get a group photo of the Ravelry Rubberneckers meetup? Am I an idjit or what?

There was baby-melting acrylic:



There was also a Bewb Hat:



There is also an EPIC .gif of the Lotus Bewb Hat, but you have to be on Rav to see that one.

A few of us met for dinner, and there was lots of fun and not nearly as much drunken revelry as would be expected:



We did get some real-time Rubbernecking in, as a woman was on her cell phone most of the time we were there, yelling at someone (presumably her daughter's date, but I'm not sure) and putting on quite a show.

Mike and I took in breakfast the next morning at the Eveready Diner -- better than any hotel breakfast!







When we went to take out money, I discovered that the bank lobby had no ATM (although it had a card-swipe to get in):



This is why I don't play poker.

As usual, we were goofy as shit:



Which is why we're married.