Jealousy and Porn and other things.

First of all, Haphazard Knitter has knitting-themed refrigerator word magnets. I'm so jealous!!!

And .. did I promise porn? I think I did. Lemme pull some of it out to add to the drooling of this deliciously hot friday. Really, I mean hot. I think it came close to 80 degrees today. Yes. In November. (Which reminds me, I need to look up the origin/meaning of 'Indian Summer'.)





That is, from top to bottom, some Tiny Toes I got to make a beautiful beaded scarf (picked up at SAFF of course), some Knit Picks Shimmer I have for a shawl I want to make for Larissa, the dear friend that taught me to knit, and the Lorna's Laces Mother Lode sock yarn I got from my Yarn Aboard benefactress, that I'm just looking for the -perfect- sock pattern for. I'm afraid that any of the more detailed patterns might be a bit too much for this beautiful colorway.



I promised a photo of my book stash .. there it is, meager as it is for now. But I've got more on my Amazon Wish List, and a few more coming, thanks to my darling husband. He just purchased himself a spinning wheel, so I get to get books and such. Nice trade, hmm?

NaBloPoMo

http://www.fussy.org/nablopomo.html

A better answer to NaNoWriMo for me, since I have not at all any intention of actually writing a novel. Not at this point in my life at least.

While I'm not an official list participant because I didn't know about the dern thing till today, I'm going to be trying to keep up with this blog (I have another at Livejournal I also neglect, even more than this one!) at least once a day.

One thing. Is it really almost a third if the way through November. Already?

Off to shower and work now. Ugh.

Say Thanks

We all know I'm not a political person. I dislike the whole mess. And I won't deny I dislike the war we're currently embroiled in.

But I do think that regardless of our feelings on the current state of things, we should support the men and women of the armed forces. They are there because they believe in fighting for freedom, and they deserve and have earned our support and respect.

Go to this website, and send a postcard to the troops. You can send as many as you like, and though you can't choose who it goes to, you can be sure whoever gets it will be grateful for the message of love and support, even from a complete stranger.

Yarn Porn

I just have to share some of my yarn porn. I can now have yarn porn, because I have a camera that will take the kind of pictures that I've seen others taking. These are some shots of the yarn I picked up at SAFF.


My beautiful, yummy, pettable angora, in 'creme', as it says on the tag. Oh, my heavens, but this is yummy. Yummy enough to make me want to buy bunnies, and make my own.


Some laceweight mohair I picked up at the place I later got my walnut swift. It's beautiful and cranberry and soft and just yum.


Three beautiful skeins of alpaca, lovingly offered to me by Magnum, Blitz and Hershey the alpaca.


Two skeins of bulky alpaca, the first alpaca I picked up during the trip. These came from Willy and Rose.


This is some absolutely delicious mohair/wool/silk blend I picked up. This is the yarn that matches my hair, and is destined to become a sweater.




My swtach of said yarn, with some ribbing, some seed, and at the top, the stitch pattern of the sweater I've chosen to make. Isn't the yarn just luscious?




Two more hanks of simply yummy wool/mohair/silk blend, in a deep foresty green and a not-annoying pink, destined to become a shawl of some sort, I think. I haven't decided yet, but between them I have like 750 yards.


A grey-green mohair/wool blend from Tintagel Farms, and a burgundy/brown/purple mohail/wool boucle from Persimmon Tree Farm. Also destined to become a shawl of some sort or another.

Oh. Yay.

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Dishcloth Cotton.You are a very hard worker, most at home when you're at home. You are thrifty and seemingly born to clean. You are considered to be a Plain Jane, but you are too practical to notice.
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Fair warning, this post will be highly picture intensive. I took just over 800 pictures on our trip, between the drive up the Blue Ridge, SAFF itself, and pictures around the 'rustic' and 'cozy' house we rented, as well as the trip to the Riverbanks Zoo and Botanical Gardens. So many pictures that I need to burn them to CDs to send them to people that want them. Which is just insanity.

So without further ado, some of my favorite pictures:


Or .. not. (*$*#(*%@#(* Blogger.

Three Bags Full

I'm back from the whirlwind that was my weekend at SAFF. I will have to post a more in-depth review later, probably tomorrow, when I've had more cold medicine in me or something, but for now, I wanted to post, say hello, and let everyone know what they missed!

To let ya'll know just how much fun was had, I took something like 850 pictures. That's how many I used up on the two memory cards while we were gone, starting on the trip up and ending when we went to the zoo on Monday. I'll have to take some time to go through them all. I'm sure a large protion of said pictures will be not keepers, but I know for certain that some will be good. There's a lot of scenery shots, some from the fiber fair, and a bunch from the zoo. Some of the animals were much more cooperative this time.

SAFF was wonderful. Cold and rainy on Friday, though that was alright because we spent all our time in the fair, and then at dinner. Saturday it cleared up, and we spent a few hours perusing the vendors. Afterwards we drove up the Blue Ridge Parkway as far as Mount Mitchel .. which was covered in a hoar frost and had a 19-dregree wind-chill factor. Sunda .. my birthday .. was spent in workshops for all of us, with a little shopping in between, then dinner at a perfectly wonderful place in Asheville, then back to the cabin for s'mores, and Monday we headed to the zoo, and spent the evening at Jason's parent's house.

The house that was rented was ... well, quaint and rustic and cozy. And had me in literal tears once I got there and realized just how far out in nowhere we were. I was fine once Jason and Larissa got there safely .. I talked them in. But it was still not our best home-away-from-home. Not by a longshot.

I'm getting tired .. cold medicine is kicking in. I'll talk about my yarn haul, and other stuff too, tomorrow. When I'm rested .. and well medicated.

So .. yeah. Menstrual and all, I stayed home today, though I don't think my boss has coverage for the store I was going to cover .. and I feel awful about it, but goddammit, I can't work when it feels like my uterus is being twisted repeatedly by Hulk Hogan. I'm fine by about 6pm, or if I'm sitting down, but my job has to be done in the mornings, and isn't a sit-down thing. So .. she will have to deal without me, cos I just can't make it out to Rivergate and handle my own store .. and I hate it, but I'm female and not past menopause and she'll just have to understand. That'll teach me to agree to cover another person's full vacation right before taking my own.

But I promised to tell you about the birthday gift Jason gave me. He's always been one that can't stand to wait .. though I have to admit, I get that way too, when it's a good one. But this is one helluva birthday present, and I just have to brag a little.

He got be a Nikon D50 SLR digital camera, a good lens to go with it, a UV filter for the lens, a camera bag, and pre-paid for lessons for me to learn how to use said camera. I'd take a picture of it, but it's kinda hard to take a picture of a camera ... but here's the website for the particular camera I have. It is cool as anything, and as much of a shutterbug as I am, it's going to be a great camera for me to play with.

For just an example of the pictures I can take with this camera, here's a shot I took of Isis.




So for those counting, I have gotten a cool as shit phone/pda, and a mega-cool digital camera within two months. Good god, what am I going to get for christmas???

In other, -really- exciting news, the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair is ... *duhnduhnduhhhhn* TOMORROW!!!! Wahoo!! In 24 hours, barring catastrophes or anything else, Brandon and I will be on our way up to Lake Lure, where we have a house rented until Monday. Jason and Larissa will be coming up that evening, but since we have to figure out how to start a fire in the wood-stove, and have to find the place on top of that, we figured we'd go up there as early as possible.

I'm bringing some knitting, of course, though I only have the burp cloth on the needles right now. But how cool will it be, sitting in the living room together, all .. minus Jason probably .. with our knitting, just gabbing away all the time while it's a frigid 20-some-degrees outside? Oohing and ahhing over the things we saw that day while driving through the mountains, or at the Fiber Fair itself. And celebrating my birthday while we're there. It's going to be so utterly perfect, I can't even begin to explain.

We went today to the Riverbanks Zoo and Botanical Garden, and I took a -ton-of pictures, and even a couple of videos - videos of course of the lion, for B. Sadly, my batteries wore out completely, so I ran out of picture time. But we had a blast .. and I even got pictures of us this time.

There was also knitting to be had. I got started on my first Mason-Dixon project .. a burp-cloth for my friend DeEstle who just recently had a baby girl. I got pretty far too, considering I only knit on the way there, and walking a little ways through the botanical garden because once I hit the zoo, I was too busy taking pictures.

Sorry for the poor pictures of the knitting. My room is so awfully dark it's hard to get good shots at night.





And now, the zoo pictures. . . .






































More can be found here.

Funny Friday 13th Sky

Heading out to work today I say the strangest clouds, all swirly and eddying and wierd. Being that it's Friday the 13th, I should have expected as much. Though I had to run back home to get my real camera and couldn't use the phone - which was dead *duhnduhnduuuhhhnnnn* - I was able to get a couple of okay shots and since I'm now waiting on my phone to charge, I figured I'd post a couple.

Zoooooooo!

Just a small selection of the pictures off my digital camera. I'm still waiting to get the pictures back from the throwaway camera I had to buy just to be able to take pictures of everything .. I'm not even sure how they'll come out. But we're gonna try, and if they don't, we know better. We're going back to either the NC Zoo in Ashboro NC or to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia SC this Sunday, so I'll have lots more pictures soon.

*bounce*squeal*glee!*

Okay, I know I owe pictures., I'm working on that. I still have to get through zoo pictures, for lady's sake, and we're planning another trip already! Yikes!!

But I just got my grade for my first term paper in Western Civ .. you know, the one I wrote in 6 hours the day it was due, with little research and less preparation? I got a 100. A perfect score. My comments were (paraphrased a little) "Paper was well written, and you used excellent sources". Lookit me go! I was -so- panicked about that paper. It was horrible, by my own estimation. So I'm MUCH relieved that I got a perfect score. Means I have to fret less.

*phews*

It's my day off, but I have a full schedule, I do I do. I have to go to the library, to pick up some sources for our -next- research paper. Then I've got to go to the local stitchery shop .. not to buy yarn, mind you, but to ask about having them embroider something on the little black bags I got for B, L and I for the fiber fair in Asheville. Two weeks away! Woot! It's crept up on us quickly all of a sudden. We had a couple other errands to run too, I think, but I don't recall them right now. B will know, when he wakes up, surely.

So I promised pictures of the almost finished shopping bag.


You can see in the bottom two pattern rounds where it was screwing up somehow, but I kinda like how it looks. Now, if only I could figure out what I did so I could repeat it. I will say I think I need to find some lighter yarn. The Sugar & Cream is a bit heavy for this. I should probably switch to a larger needle next time I make one of these, see if I can't get it to loosen up a little.

Now then. I went to the zoo two weekends ago. (See how behind I am!) But blogger is being a bitch .. again, so I'm going to have to post those pictures later. I have a throwaway camera to get developed anyhow. I'll get back to you with more when I have them. :)