Memery

This meme's been making the rounds, so I decided to join in the fun.

What's the last book you read that you thought was really super, inspiring, you'd recommend it to most anyone?

I'm sad to say I don't read that much, and what I do read tends to be stuff like Harry Potter or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I definitely recommend the Hitchhiker (5-book) trilogy by Douglas Adams. It's not what I'd call inspiring, but it's absurd and funny and will make you look at towels, dolphins, and mice in a new way.

What food totally grosses you out, you'd never be able to touch it? Ew. Gag. *hurl*

Does coffee count? I know it's a sweet, life-giving nectar for a lot of you, but I find the smell revolting. If we're talking more solid food, I think fish is about the worst thing I can imagine right now. Yuck.

Did you ever watch a scary movie that frightened you so much you were afraid of the dark afterward? I mean like you're lying in bed trying to sleep, but you have to pee, but you're scared to get up. It doesn't have to be recently; could be when you were a kid. So what movie was it?

The Ring gave me nightmares for a week, and I was afraid to look at a television set for a while.

Is there a song that makes you dance every time you hear it? Would you tap you feet and sing along to it in public?

Most of the songs on my MP3 player are like that. A few of my favorites right now are: "Lay All Your Love On Me" by ABBA, "In These Shoes" by Kirsty MacColl, "Uptown Seranade" by Walter Murphy, "Vertigo" by U2, "Walkie Talkie Man" by Sertiogram (the video has yarn! and knitting! and crocheting!), "Ca Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand, and "Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident)" by John Michael Montgomery.

Tattoos: yes or no? Do you have any? Tell us! Do you think they're gross? TELL US!

I don't have any tattoos. I've thought about it, but decided that if I go for a permanent body modification, I'll probably go with branding instead of tattooing. When it comes to my body, I'm more interested in texture than color.

When's the last time you laughed so hard your ribs ached and/or you nearly peed yourself? What made you do it?

During my first date with David (Rhinebeck 2006), he did this thing that made me laugh so hard my sides hurt. I would totally screw up any attempt to describe it, but trust me, it was hilarious.

Draw or doodle a picture of your pet(s) and post it if possible. Nothing fancy, don't be shy!

I'm no Franklin, but here she is.



Go through a stack or box of your old music. Stuff that you may not have heard in years. Pick one and tell us about it. Is it as good (or as bad) as you remember?

Seeing as I didn't start acquiring music for myself until about eight years ago, most of it is stuff I still like. I think the weirdest album in my collection is Mickey Mouse Disco (on vinyl).

Do you still sleep with a stuffed animal? We won't laugh!

Does Slut Bunwalla count? 'Cause he lives right next to my bed.

Missed

So it looks like I missed a lot of people at MA S&W. *pout* I did see Cheryl (finally!), Laurie, Tina, and Juno (who I seem to have startled with my hat). Rhinebeck is less than five months away... I hope to see bunches and bunches of people there.

I've been spinning, both on the spindle and Babette, but not knitting very much... my priority right now is finishing a chainmaille band for the aforementioned hat before my next trip to Texas, two weeks from tomorrow. Fun!

Sheep!

New Toy

When I woke up at 5am yesterday, I didn't think I'd be doing much with the day. During breakfast I remembered that this is the weekend of the Massachusetts Sheep & Woolcraft Fair, and suddenly the day had purpose. At 7:30 I hopped in the car and headed for Cummington.

Almost as soon as I arrived I knew that I had a mission: buy a spindle. I laid eyes on a Forrester spindle very much like this one at The Wheel Thing, but promised myself that I wouldn't spend any money until after lunch, just so I had a chance to look at everything and make an informed decision.

Not ten minutes later I'd fallen in love with a Butterfly Girl spindle at Spunky Eclectic. I then spent almost three hours trying to make up my mind. Luckily I hooked up with Jenny and Deb, spinners both, who helped me make my decision.



Beautiful, innnit? Miss Spunky herself actually rummaged around in the back of her van to find this particular spindle because I was being a Goldilocks with the ones she had on display. Once I'd picked out the spindle, I needed fiber. You understand, right? I have half a dozen fleeces ready to spin at home, but they're nowhere near nice enough for this spindle... no, this spindle needed something special.



I think Tussah is special, don't you? This is Spunky's handpainted Tussah silk top in "Emerald Isle" (no longer on her site). She also threw in a fistful of random wool that I spun up as soon as I got home.



I'm still not hooked on spindling (the stop-and-go rhythm frustrates me), but at least I have something beautiful to look at while I work on it.

Sheep pictures coming soon!

Sisterly Pride

As some of you know, I hate my sister. But y'know, I love her, too. And there are even times when I'm wicked proud of her. This is one of those times.

My sis rocks in the formal secondary education environment. She's all about tests and studying and kicking some serious academic butt. She's into science in a big way, and keeps getting stellar grades in very tough classes. For example:

Plant Physiology: A
Ecological Physiology: A-
Genetics: A-
Neurobiology: A
Methods in Neuroscience: A
Organic Chemistry I: A

She just found out today that she's earned an A in Organic Chemistry II, as well. Someone said to me a few months ago that nobody gets an A in Organic Chemistry. Hah! My sister rocks.

In other family news, my father gave his last finals last week and will be officially retired from teaching early next month. He's 70 years old, and now he's finally able to pursue his true passion full-time: geology. His way of pursuing this passion? Hiking around in the woods to find, photograph, and record locations of abandoned mines so he can put together books for the DEP.

In light of these accomplishments, the three of us will be going out for a big celebratory dinner later this week. In the meantime I'm working on sweater ribbing, lace, and a cuff-down, flap-heel sock that is hurting my brain and my hands, but will (hopefully) be worth the pain.

Hooha Jammies!

I've considered myself moderately "crunchy" for many years, though a lot of the things I dream about doing don't actually happen for a while. One of those things was making cloth menstrual pads. I got a Diva Cup a few years ago, but after three or four cycles of not being able to get the bloody thing (heh) to seal on my two heavy days, I gave up. Flannel was on sale at JoAnns not too long ago, so I picked up enough for about a dozen pads for under $5. When I told David what I was up to, his response was, "...you have flannel pjs for your hooha?"

Yup. Hooha jammies.



I used Adahy's Multi-layer Pad pattern, which I like very much. It's simple and easy and fits me just right.



This batch (for lighter days) is four layers of flannel with one layer of terrycloth. You can see the blue terrycloth peeking out from inside the red flannel. The slits in the red piece and the whale piece were for turning them right side out after sewing. The red piece and the whale piece are then pinned together (slit sides together) and topstitched.



(Check out the large version of that pic... top pad is pinned, bottom one has been stitched.)

I'll sew a snap on the wings, and voila! These pads are the most comfortable things I've worn next to my girly bits. I'll be making some thicker ones for heavier days (possibly with waterproof liners). You now know more about me than you probably ever wanted to. Yay!

Oh, and I finished a sock, too.

The Good And The Sad

Okay, let's see... what haven't I written about? The Harlot came to Webs on her "Things I Learned..." tour, and I was part of the CTRSnB contingent heckling Stephanie from the third row. Okay, not so much heckling as trying to keep our sides from splitting. The woman is a riot! On the way out of the theater, there was a communion line of sorts... Jess and assistants were handing out Ravelry buttons and stickers. I picked up a Bob sticker and another "where my stitches at?" button. Back at Webs, both the book-signing and checkout lines were long, but worth the wait. I managed to walk out of there with my wallet more-or-less intact... just one copy of Stephanie's new book (signed for David) and one ball of off-white Rowan cotton.

Speaking of Ravelry... for the first time, I'm disappointed. Casey's been talking about opening the store for a while, and now that we can finally see what's available... there's nothing I want. The designs, the colors, the fits... there are no combinations currently available that I would wear. I don't even like the bags or the shot/pint glasses. I'm very sad about this. I love Ravelry and would love to have more swag, but not if it's hot pink, super-scoop-necked, or four sizes too big.

Progress is being made on the sweater and the lace scarf, and once again I'm trying to stay in good spirits in spite of being "home" after another wonderful vacation.

Mmmm, Texas!

Once again, I love being here in Texas so much that I don't want to go home. David tested my endurance with an 11-mile bike ride the other day (and considering I haven't been on a bicycle in at least five years, I think I did pretty well), we got addicted to Mario Kart on the Wii, and saw Iron Man. Have I mentioned that I love it here?

Oh, and I've done very little knitting. Tragic, eh? ;-)