Tuesday, February 28, 2006

This is a knitting blog?



Modeled by Monkey Boy.

Why yes, yes it is! Proof is shown above and below. Mrs. Beeton from Knitty.com.

Yup, that's my hand
Showing the inner ruffle/bell.

FO Report:
Mrs. Beeton from Knitty.com

Yarn: 1 skein (less than 120yds) of Capistrano Fiber Arts' Handpainted (only available at LPK) 100% Alpaca in "Berries". Less than 1/4 skein of Blue Sky Alpacas Sportweight Alpaca in Chartreuse. This is the 'old style' of BSA, which they are phasing out.

Notes: The pattern calls for a contrasting color as the outer "bell" or ruffle, and the master color as the inner bell. I did the the other way around (CC as the inner bell and MC as the outer) because I think it looks better in this colorway and with these yarns. I also made the wristwarmers a little longer than the length in the pattern, and I didn't use the picot edge suggested by the designer. A picot chain stitch from Nicky Epstein's Knitting on the Edge seemed to fit better.

It's a pretty easy pattern, and I think it's great for using up small bits of yarn. Especially those really expensive ones like Kidsilk Haze, which would make a cool outer or inner ruffle. The hardest part was figuring out how to connect the two bells together; despite the pattern's well written instructions, I had to fiddle with the two peices for a few minutes before everything clicked.

I think these would make great gifts and I'm planning on making another pair.



Is it just me?

Or does anyone else have problems reading the damned verification 'word' on Blogger? I swear, sometimes I have to type it in two or three times because the letters are all jumbled up and I can't tell if it's a "j" or an "i".

hrmph

And Lady E grows....she's about 42 inches long now, which is about 15 sets of tiers. I have two balls left of Noro and I think I'll do one more ball before I try casting off. Not sure yet if there will be fringe like the book, or if I'll be doing tassels (or nothing at all).

Alas, no pictures of Lady E as it's dark and rainy today. The boys and I have been cooped up all day (with the exception of swim lessons this morning), so there have been few free moments to whip out my camera and take a snap of the Lady. Tomorrow is Self Portrait Tuesday and I haven't had time to do that either.

Call me Slacker. I'll answer.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Yarn P0rn....

I know I haven't been posting much lately. Monkey Boy has dropped one of his naps and become much more of a climber/wriggly worm so my blogging time has really been cut. Much knitting has been going on but there's not a single FO to show for it.

So, since I can't take pics of finished objects....how about some Yarn P0rn? I belong to the yarncoop group on Yahoo and we recently finished a coop with 100purewool from Ebay. Their yarn is very similar to the worsted weight merino from Malabrigo/handpaintedyarn.com. Here's what arrived in a big USPS box yesterday....

"warm ice"


"liz"

liz

A couple of colorways I forgot the names of...
IMG_9222 copy

I'm thinking of using this for the "hourglass sweater" from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.
IMG_9219 copy

And I'm not so sure I like this colorway. It's kinda meh if you ask me. Not enough contrast between the pinks/browns. And even the pinks/browns are a little too washed out. I only got two skeins of this though, so it might be okay for some boot socks.
IMG_9224 copy

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

She grows....














Lady E, that is...


So far she's about 36 inches long. I've used up nearly 5 balls of Noro and I have 5 left so it's looking like I won't run out of yarn (which I fear doing).

My house is a mess, but I can make cake


Mocha Chocolate Cake
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Hey, you gotta keep up with the important things in life, right?

I just got the new Cooking Light magazine and saw this recipe for Mocha Chocolate cake. The eggs and butter in the batter are replaced by mayo and a little bit of canola oil (2 tbs). The "light" cakes I've made in the past have usually been hit or miss. Sometimes they're really good and sometimes they're a waste of ingredients.

This cake is delicious! Very chocolatey and moist without being overly sweet. The topping is Cool Whip + marshmellow creme along with some brewed coffee. I was supposed to swirl some choco syrup over the top but opted for mini choco chips since I was all out of syrup.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Self Portait Tuesday



Another entry for "All of Me"...which should be called "uglee me".

These are obviously my footsies, one of my least favorite body parts. I have what I consider to be quite uglee feet. When I was a kid, my friends used to tease me because my toes were so long. Plus I have *shudder* hairy toes. (The things we cop to on the internet!) To top off the foot uglees, my heels get really dried and cracked during the summer. So attractive.

You'll also notice my footsies are propped up on a lovely pile of laundry. There are many such piles in my house- mostly in our bedroom and in my closet. I'm a terrible laundress. I never have a problem putting clothes into the machine, but folding them is another story. Most of the time clothes go straight from the drier into a basket- there to loiter till I get around to needing them. Inevitably they are soooo wrinkly by the time I pick them out of the pile, they're unwearable. So instead of ironing them, I wash them again.

That's right, I wash clean clothes.

I told you it was uglee.

What we did today...



Today was a beach day! We took Little Man and Monkey Boy to the tidepools at Corona Del Mar. LM was more interested in throwing rocks than playing in the tidepools. And Monkey Boy kept running toward the water, nevermind that it was FREEZING.

Making a break for the water!


IMG_9076copy
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Endless ocean


IMG_9067bw
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Monkey Boy in the sand


sand
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Ya think?


You scored as Moya (Farscape). You are surrounded by muppets. But that is okay because they are your friends and have shown many times that they can be trusted. Now if only you could stop being bothered about wormholes.

Moya (Farscape)


88%

Babylon 5 (Babylon 5)


81%

Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)


75%

Serenity (Firefly)


69%

Enterprise D (Star Trek)


69%

Bebop (Cowboy Bebop)


63%

SG-1 (Stargate)


63%

FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files)


63%

Deep Space Nine (Star Trek)


63%

Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica)


63%

Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda)


50%

Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix)


50%

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Good eats


Eat cake
Originally uploaded by shizzknits.

Two layers of devil's food cake.

Coffee Heath Bar crunch ice cream.

Chocolate fudge ganache.

Birthday cake for two....Delicious!

Just an observer

I watched the Olympic opening ceremonies last night as I was knitting away on Lady E. Wait, I lie: I watched the ceremonies while simultaneously watching a Tivo'd recording of Beverly Hills 90210 (my secret vice). Whenever the ceremonies got too boring, I'd switch back to Brandon, Dylan and the gang. It made for some perfect knitting background.

Seemingly everyone else in blogland is joining in on the Olympic knitting thing , but I"m going to have to wait another four years for my chance. The kiddos are too demanding at this stage for me to be able to commit to knitting something in 16 days. Instead I'm going to be a


"likkered up observer"


Doesn't that just fit?

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Self Portrait Tuesday



This is my first SPT image. The "theme" for the month of February is 'All of Me' and we're supposed to find images of ourselves that we normally wouldn't show.

I've never liked myself in photographs, which is ironic because I'm a professional photog and I love taking photographs of other people. There's nothing like the feeling I get when a client says "Wow, I can't believe how good I look in these pictures."

I'll admit that I'm much more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it. The first thing I think of when I see myself in a picture is "boy this is going to be a lot of Photoshop work" *snort*

Anyways, here's my self portrait for today. It's a shot of one of my bald spots. I have alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease which causes hair loss. My fist AA attack ocurred in law school. One day I woke up and there was a huge hunk of hair laying on my pillow. I lost a pretty good amount of hair before finally being diagnosed with alopecia areata.

There's no cure for AA. It's caused by stress so medicos usually tell patients to lower their stress levels. The only other treatment is to inject cortisone into the bald spots, which supresses the immune reaction long enough for the hair to grow back.

Lucky me, I got the injections since I couldn't exactly quit law school to reduce my stress. At one point I was going to the doctor every two weeks and receiving up to 75 injections in my scalp. The worst part (besides the pain) was the doctor, who would always say "sorry, sorry, sorry" with every shot. And the assistant who would wince every time I got an injection.

Eventually I realized that being a lawyer was not what I wanted to do....and my AA got better when I quit my job and started doing something else. I stopped going to the doctor for those oh so fun injections and my hair started to grow back in.

It's been about six years since my last bad AA attack. But every once in a while I get another bald patch like this one to remind me to take it easy.

Friday, February 03, 2006

Trip to FrustrationLand


So.

I've been running around the 'net looking at non-knitting blogs and ran across this. How cute is all that crafting??? After looking around online for Japanese crafting books, I realized that I live pretty close to at least three or four large Japanese markets. Last night I decided that I would take the boys to Mitsuwa for a little shopping trip.

First we went thru the foody side of the store. I love Japanese snacks. Going down the snack aisle is always fun. Half the time there are no English translation on the packages so I have no idea what I'm really buying, but that's part of the thrill. I let Little Man pick out a package of cookies shaped like ice cream cones. Monkey Boy got some "Babee Kookies", which turned out to be very light graham-crackerish cookies in the shape of a baby's face. We also got some dried, seasoned seaweed (which is one of LM's faves), a bag of crunchy peas, and some dried, seasoned squid (my special treat). The dried squid sounds nasty but it's akin to beef jerky in texture and tastes a little like teryiaki. Everything except the squid is in the pic above.

After grabbing some pre-packaged sushi, we paid and headed over to the bookish part of the store. Fortunately I was able to find the crafty section pretty easily considering everything was in Japanese. Unfortunately I was forced to carry Monkey Boy because no carts were allowed in the book section. Since most of the books had little or no English on them, it was really hard browse. I was able to pull books off the shelf but couldn't really look thru them because Monkey Boy kept trying to grab them out of my hands.

Then Little Man announced that he needed to go potty.

*sigh*

At that point I decided to cut my losses and we left the store. I'll go back one day soon sans kiddos so I can actually browse comfortably.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

You want it, you know you do



I wanted it.

Now I have it.

*evil laugh*

Go get yer own copy!

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Such a deal!



So I was talking to a friend of mine and she mentioned that Rowan was having a sale online. You could get three back issues of Rowan mag for $15! (The offer changes all the time so check it out if you're interested)

A few clicks later and I had an order on its way to me. A couple of my books were on backorder, so here are the ones that arrived a few days ago. That's Rowan 30 and 32 in case you can't tell. I'm still waiting for the third mag, but these will tide me over for quite a while.

A bunch of Miss Bea's books



I got six of these because they were "2 for $8". One of the books isn't really to my taste, but I've found patterns I like in all the other ones.