Happy Birthday to Me! (and a contest)

Edited to fix the date for the end of the contest : Post a comment by 10:00 p.m. central time on Sunday, August 5.

Today's my birthday! Remember last year? Things have really changed in the last year. Well, I still have the tattoo, but lots of changes otherwise.

I spent the weekend at Mom's, and stash enhancement occurred. I visited Nanncy's (apparently, no website), which has moved to a space four times as big, so of course I had to buy something!

On the right are three skeins of Rowan KidsilkHaze in Candy Girl, destined to become Wisp. On the left, there are two skeins of Colinette Jitterbug: Sahara and Raspberry. And over the weekend, I also heard that I won a skein of Jitterbug in Courtney's contest. What's really funny is that, until now, I had no Jitterbug in my stash!

So - y'all can help me out with this over-abundance. Leave a comment on this post by 10:00 p.m. (central time) on Sunday, August 5, and some random commenter will win one of the skeins above (either the Sahara or the Raspberry -- your choice).

Also, I've been tagged twice now as a Rockin' Girl Blogger -- I'll be tagging some of you in the next day or so!

What lolcat are you? (Or, wut lolcat iz u?)

I know you knitters all know about lolcats, since cats and knitting are inexplicably linked. Just in case you have missed this phenomenon, here's an explanation (and note that one of the See also references on that entry is Cuteness).

Anyway -- I am the Lion Warning Cat, which seems appropriate, both because I do worry about everyone's well-being and because Lion Warning Cat is the only tuxedo cat in the bunch.

Your Score: Lion Warning Cat

72% Affectionate, 75% Excitable, 44% Hungry

You are the good Samaritan of the lolcat world. Protecting others from danger by shouting observations and guidance in cases of imminent threat, you believe in the well-being of everyone.



To see all possible results, checka dis.

Link: The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by GumOtaku on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Next time: maybe some actual knitting!

Comments

I give up -- I can't figure out what's going on with Haloscan comments, so I'll go back to using Blogger comments. This means that all my old Haloscan comments won't be showing up anymore (although I can still get to them through the Haloscan website) and also -- more importantly -- that I'll have more trouble responding to comments. Haloscan always gave me your email address, while Blogger does not. Of course, I "know" most of you who comment, but if I should happen to get a new commenter, I'll have a problem.

Catching Up

The camera, spare cord, and I are finally all in the same place tonight. Of course, there's not much knitting to show you -- however, I did finish Harry Potter 7 tonight!

I promised y'all a picture of the gorgeous Kitchenered toe on my first Monkey. You might remember that my friend Becky (sadly blogless) walked me through it -- I may need to call her to have her walk me through the second one!

Have you ever tried to take a photo of your own toes?

I'm still working on Clue 1, Chart B of the Mystery Stole -- I'm on row 88 (of 100 in Clue 1). I enjoy it, but I really need to think while I'm working on it. As I've mentioned, I'm not the only person who has been frustrated by Chart B. I've frogged back to my lifeline at row 82 twice.

Oh - and I still haven't blocked Askew!

Despite this lack of knitting progress, I have managed to increase my stash. This pretty fuchsia/orange/yellow sock yarn is the Ginny colorway by local knitter/dyer/blogger KnittingHawkeye. You should go visit her Etsy shop -- she's got some fantastic Harry Potter-inspired colors, at a very reasonable price.

Totally unrelated to anything (although I think my San Antonio friends will appreciate this) -- look at my nails!

About 3 weeks ago, I realized that I had stopped biting my nails. I first stopped biting them almost 20 years ago, but about a year ago, I started again. But now, thanks to a much more relaxed work environment, I've stopped, without any effort!

Comment craziness: Just so you'll know -- my comments are still behaving strangely. I'm hoping to have time this weekend to figure out what's going on and get them to all show up in one place. And at this point, I don't care whether it's in Blogger or Haloscan comments!

The Sorting Hat

Because I forgot to bring the camera cord home from work and because I'm still working on Harry Potter, I give you one variation on the Sorting Hat.

Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?

Yes, I'm still alive but busy....

reading Harry Potter. Plus, I can't find the cord to my camera. I'm pretty sure I made it home from San Antonio with it, but it's no where to be found. Luckily, my external hard drive has a cord I can use, but it's at work....

I have been knitting, although not today. Today I finally got my Iowa drivers license, although my car still has Texas plates, and went up to Cedar Rapids to shop a little. I bought Harley one of these at Petsmart.

Knitting that has been done:

• I've finished the pieces of Askew and need to block and seam it. I'm thinking I might block it tomorrow.
• I'm only on about row 85 of the MS3 stole, still in the frustrating Chart B of Clue 1. I'm apparently not the only person having problems with this section, but I hope to get through it tomorrow. Clue 4 came out yesterday, but luckily this isn't a race. (And just to clarify - it's not like Chart B is full of errors or anything - it just seems to be frustrating.)
  
• The second Monkey sock is progressing nicely.

Knitter Friends

I chose to stay an extra day after my conference, so I could see my knitter friends. This was a special SnB today -- we road-tripped to the charming Valletta Kafe in Pleasanton, so we could see Enid and her baby.

I, of course, didn't take a single picture, but luckily other people did. Amy's already blogged about it, so go read her post.

Thank you, knitter friends, for a fun afternoon. It was so great to see y'all!

Sleepy Boy

Long-distance blogging

I'm back in San Antonio, presenting at a conference and visiting my sister. It's stopped raining here, which is interesting -- it had pretty much rained ever since I left in May, and now that I'm here, it's stopped. Interesting, eh?

Look who I got to see:

Oh, and that would be my sister with Simon! Actually, I'm getting to see lots of Simon because I'm staying at my sister's. So, just like old times, Simon is waking me up every morning at 5:00 a.m.

The conference has provided a fair amount of knitting time. I'm almost finished with the right front of Askew, which leave just the back (just!). I also finally finished up my first Monkey sock, with some help from my friend Becky, who is also at the conference. I've always had awful trouble kitchenering. I have to keep looking at the directions for each stitch. Becky walked me through it, and I think maybe I've got it now. I tried to take a picture of the kitchenered toe, because it's so pretty, but I'm going to have to wait for better light.

MS3

Mystery Stole 3 is sort of mesmerizing. I'm still working on Clue 1 -- I'm at Row 60, which means it's time to move my lifeline.

Here's the first 50 rows. You might be able to see a bead towards the top. And that purple thing is my life line, at Row 40.

The yarn is Skacel Merino Lace, in very pale pink, rescued from the trapped tub. The beads are white and faceted, size 8/0. I should have just gone to Hobby Lobby to get them, but went to the bead shop next door to my LYS instead. The woman working thought an ounce sounded like a lot, so I didn't buy that many. I'm thinking that the tubes of beads are probably sold by volume (like liquid ounces), not by weight, which is how the bead shop weighs them. I think I've got plenty of beads!

This is my first time using beads in my knitting. I like the crochet hook method. Picking the beads up with the teeny crochet hook doesn't bother me. I did a lot of beaded cross-stitch, so the one-at-a-time method seems very familiar.

Comment Craziness

I still have comments showing up in two places--regular Blogger comments and Haloscan comments. I still don't know why this is happening, but I think I know how it's happening.

(Someone asked why I used Haloscan comments. It's because Blogger comments don't always show me everyone's email addresses, while Haloscan does.)

If you read my blog through a blog reader, you probably just click on the post title to read the whole thing. When you only look at one post at a time, the Blogger comments, and ability to post a comment through Blogger, are automatically included at the bottom of the page.

However, if you go to my blog through a bookmark or some other way that gets you to the whole blog (where you see several posts at once), you don't see the comments automatically, but you do see the Comments link. This link takes you to Haloscan comments.

Before I had to reload my template, all my comments went through Haloscan. With the "new" template, I had to also reapply Haloscan comments, and obviously something went wrong. I messed with my template for a while this afternoon, but all I managed to do is make several posts overlap each other.

If you want to see what everyone has said on a post, you might want to go to the "full blog" view (not just the latest post). If you click on Comments at the bottom of the post, you'll see Haloscan comments. If you click on the time at the bottom of the post, you'll see Blogger comments.

Yarn Released from Captivity

Note on comments: Since I reloaded my template, and also had to reload Haloscan commenting, I've been getting both Blogger comments and Haloscan comments. If you click Comments at the bottom of the post, you'll see the Haloscan comments for that post. If you click the time on the post, you'll see the Blogger comments! I can't see that I did anything wrong, so if you click to comment and get the Blogger comment window, could you tell me exactly what you did? Thanks!

I mentioned a couple days ago that the pale pink Skacel Merino Lace that I wanted to use for Mystery Stole 3 was trapped, with some of its yarny friends and most of my Christmas decorations, in a Rubbermaid tub in my office closet. Somehow, the movers had manage to wedge two tubs plus my Christmas tree box into this tiny closet.

I had already opened the top tub and removed the yarn there, but couldn't figure out how to get the tubs out of the closet. I was hoping my brother would be able to take one look at it and say, "Here's how we do it!"

Maybe you can see better how little space we were dealing with -- and there's a rod and shelf just above the top tub, too:

But, no, he was equally puzzled and proceeded to get out his tools to remove the doors! That seemed excessive, especially since the door hardware was painted over, which would make it even harder to remove. So, instead, we decided to remove the Christmas decorations that remained in the top tub. After that, we were able to shift the tub to its side and pull it out. I suspect that's how the movers got them in, too -- rotating them to the side. Luckily, the yarn protected the Christmas decoration!

Once we got the first tub out, it was easier to remove the second tub and the Christmas tree box, because we had more room to maneuver above the boxes.

The tubs and the tree are now ensconced in the craft room office closet, which is considerably larger. And the Skacel Merino lace has been freed and is waiting to become MS3!

In fact, I've already cast on and worked the set-up row. Can you see the first tiny bead?

Stop me before I cast on again!

I'll admit it - I am sometimes rather lemming-like. "Yes, let's all jump off that cliff!" This week's cliff is the Mystery Stole 3, which over 5400 of the coolest knitters have already signed up for.

I'm pretty sure that part of the attraction is the fact that it's called MS3 for short. In my old job, we worked with the third-year medical students quite a lot, and we referred to them as MS3s. It struck me as funny that MS3 could also mean this beautiful shawl (not that I didn't love my MS3s.....). Then I saw come pictures on Ravelry. A couple of them were in Skacel Merino Lace, which I have in my stash.* I may even have suitable beads in my stash (if I can find the box that has ancient cross-stitch supplies in it), although I don't have the size 13 crochet hook to put them on. But gosh -- what's one crochet hook?

Clue 1 was released last Friday, and Clue 2 will be released tomorrow. If you want to take part, you need to sign up by tomorrow. However, Melanie will be releasing the pattern (for a fee and all done up as a single PDF) once the KAL is over, so if you don't get in now, you've still got a chance.

Luckily, the isn't a race, because I'm going to be two clues behind before I even get started and I'm a really slow knitter!

Speaking of slow knitter, I'm really proud of the fact that I've finished the left front of Askew, and have cast on for the right front. Pretty eh?

* The lovely pale pink Skacel Merino Lace is in the portion of my stash which is trapped in a Rubbermaid tub in my smallest closest. In this closet there are two tubs plus the box with my Christmas tree. The closet is about 6 inches longer than the tubs, and I can't get them out. I opened the top tub and pulled the yarn out, but I can't get into the other tub. I have no idea how the mover's helpers got them in there, but I'm hoping my brother can figure it out when he visits this weekend!

Oops!

Despite the large number of WIPs (and if you're on Ravelry -- well, there are more WIPs than you see there!), I suddenly had to knit Askew. So I ordered some of the requisite Noro Silk Garden (colorway 246) from SuperCrafty last week. It arrived yesterday -- look at the cute and oh-so-true button Allison included with my order. (Sorry it's blurry -- I'm too lazy to try again.)

I swatched, then cast on last night.

So this is what I'll work on this evening. Harley, in the meantime, is watching the wildlife in the backyard.

Someone asked about the "lake" behind my townhouse. Willow Creek turns into a pond behind my complex, which makes for a very pretty backyard. At night, there's some unknown critter that croaks all night long. The first couple nights, he kept both Harley and me awake, but we've gotten used to it!