My audience

If you read my next post (written before this one), keep in mind, this was my audience. Let me introduce you to Paint, she is my friend's cat. Little bit crazy, stayed in this pose for a couple of minutes, I kid you not.
So, yeah, just wanted to say that if I come off crazy, this was my inspiration...

Talk show

When I saw Michelle being brave and putting up all her UFOs, I admired that. I wanted to give it a try, but I ... just can't quiet do that, there is still too much shame just because of the number of UFOs in my closet. So I decided to let out the sweaters only, for today. While arraning them, it's like they started talking to me. Here's what they had to say.
Blue Fluffy: Hey you, I'm almost finished. What's wrong with you, you have only 15 something inches to go and then some minimal seeming. Why don't you just finish me?
Chocolate Mocha: Because she is thinking about me. Whenever she works on one of you, she is thinking about how nice it would be to finish me. It's all about me.
Me: Hey chocolate mocha, cool it. I love all my sweaters to be. I love them all equally.
BF: Then why don't you finish me?
Me: I ... I don't know. I will work on you. I promise to finish you soon.
Cable Sweater: And what about me? Did you forget about me. I was supposed to be your first sweater, but you haven't knit any rows for over a month. I knit up nicely, I don't snag, I'm soft ... I behave like a good yarn. I even went and got stitchmarkers to make myself more pretty. And you just ignore me. Or are you planning on leaving me like this, a front panel with a strap in the back?
[And then the white yarn enters the stage...]
White Yarn: Easy for you all to say. She hasn't even touched me. What's wrong with me? I promise to knit up nicely, I want get into any knots, I will be good to you, I was made with german efficiency. And look at my little specks of color, aren't they pretty. Oh, oh I know what you're thinking, as soon as the new yarn comes, you're gonna cast on with that one.
Me: I want to cast on with you, white yarn, but I have no Denise cables free just now. I think about you. I even have a pattern for you...
[Sarcastic 'uhm hmm's from the audience]
Me: No really, I do ... Ok, here is my promise to you all. Blue fluffy, I will finish you very soon, if only to free up the Denise cable. White yarn, you are right, chances are I will cast on with the new yarn...
WY: I knew it. [ Runs off crying and I chase it.]
Me: White yarn, don't worry, I have a pattern for you but it is not quiet perfect for you yet. Just waiting for the inspiration to hit me and then you will be gorgeous. I'm not strong enough to stand up to the new yarn, it's tweed. TWEEEEEEEED!
WY: Promise?
Me: I promise. And cable sweater, just be a little patient. I will not leave you like this. You will be gorgeous too. Finally, chocolate mocha, you can't be so demanding. I do think about you a lot but you are my youngest projects. There are some other things that just need to be finished before you.

So, there you have it. Next time, the war in lapghanistan: the blankets speak up.

Am I crazy, probably. But most people think I am pretty harmless.

Pie

I haven't done much knitting today but I promise I will. I have been making some progress on the sleeve. I am about 1/3 of the way done, so I need to hang in there. And to help me, I decided to make me some pie. I went for the (non-evil) strawberry kind.
And here you have the recipe, of course you have to remember I am LAZY. So for the ingredients I got:
-pre-made grahm cracker pie crust
-2 of the vanilla pudding cups
-strawberries (non evil-kind)
-jello
If you are less lazy than me, you can make your own pie crust of make your own pudding or custard or something like it.

Instructions: you take the pie crust and put a layer of pudding in it, make sure you coat the pie walls too. Put in however much you like, I put in 2 of the cups, you can put in more or less. Next cut the strawberries in thick slices and layer them on top of the pudding. You can use other fruit is you want, I just went with strawberries. I you want to be really fancy, you can make sure the outsides of the strawberries face up, looks fancy, not much extra work. And last step, you make the jello (I only made half the packet). Make sure it gets a little firm and then just dump it on top. If you want to be a bit fancier, you can brush it on so you don't have too much of a jello excess. Me, I just poured the whole thing on there. You'll, if you have a lot of berries, you might not have that much room for jello. The jello is just there to separate the berries from the air so they stay nice a little longer and they look a bit shiny and pretty.

Enjoy. All in all, this desert is not too unhealthy, so I'm gonna go back now for my second piece, hehe.

New forcefield

Aaarrrgghhh, this new forcefield is too strong. I need to get out.

Oooh the work

So here you see my fluffy blue sweater, or at least the sleeves. As you can see, I have only about 22" of sleeve left. How long is it taking me to knit these 22"? A long, long time. This picture was actually taken on Thursday and I regret to say, it still looks the same. One of the reasons my blue fluffy isn't getting any longer, it's there in the picture too. I call it my chocolate mocha cardi. I hope it will turn out as pretty as it sounds tasty.
I got to go to sunny San Diego this weekend for a rugby tournement. That was fun, didn't win anything but I did get to take home a lovely little sunburn. And, my other prize, a jammed finger. Hooray. It has pretty purple blue green colors. Quiet inspirational for a color chart. I would love to show you a picture but the truth is, I have jammed it so often it is not all that spectacular. It won't become huge and the colors are not super prominent (but they do come out nicely after a warm shower. Still good for a color shart.) So no spectacular pictures, but for that my finger won't interfere much with my knitting.
And I will need it, in case the inspiration hits me to finish my blue fluffy.

Sophisticated Ophie

Sophiticated Ophie
But I will not be talking about Ophie. No, because earlier this week, I got into the Visiting Graduate Student Program at the Spitzer Science Center up in Pasadena. Yep, it is geek central up there, you got Caltech, JPL (affiliated with NASA), they will be my neighbours when I work there. So, needless to say, pretty happy about that. And I want to give a big THANK YOU to Michelle, she helped me a lot. I mean, I know I come off as a litterary master in the blog (ahm ahm) but I cannot write a statement of purpose to save my life. Unless I can write something like : "I buy the yarn, I knit the yarn and I will buy new yarn before I finish project #1."
I do know this will cut into my knitting time but right now, I think I am OK with that. We will see when I actually start working there. So I guess I better get a move on and finish lots of projects while I still can. I am happy to say I have less than 22" to knit on my blue fluffy sweater, it is the last sleeve (yes, the last of 2, but last sounds more dramatic than 2nd and dramatic is tonight's theme). I still have 6-ish rows to crochet on my friend's blanket, he will be coming in Aug. I still have a month you say, well, I also have this chocolate coloured cardi with mocha coloured argyles that I am working on. It is demanding my attention right now. (chocolate and mocha, sounds yummy.)

Well, back to my celebratory bottle of wine. Sorry for any spelling errors, the blogger spellcheck doesn't work.

Happy sunday

Look at this. My kitty, the huntress. Look at how she brings back the moussie. Yep, this cat actually loves to play fetch, which is very cute but not so much at 7am.

Happy Sunday

Glad to say I had a good weekend this time. Heck, make that a great one. Nothing like Vegas to make you forget about crappy stupid people from the week before.
But then, I came home, walked into my closet and really couldn't get very far. Yes, I have a walk-in closet, LOVE that. However, right now it is more of a jump-to-an-open-spot-and-try-not-to-trip closet. So I figure, if I share what my closet looks like with everybody, maybe the embarrasment will get me to clean it up. So here it is, a look into my closet. Hopefully soon I will be able to post a new picture where you can see the floor. Enjoy and wish me luck.

A tube top, a scarf and a secretary

So this will one day soon be a sweater. Soon, but I am not sure when. Right now it is a tube top with a short sleeve. And if you look at the giant ball of yarn next to it, it is a mystery how that ball is still so huge after all this time. I like it. It is the never ending ball of yarn. That ball is the anti black hole.

A tube top, a scarf and a secretary

At some point, maybe even before the cold weather strikes on the east coast, I will finish the scarf for my friend. She will be going to Harvard. Yep, she is so smart that on her first crocheting attempt, she invented a new stitch.

Ophie, the former model, is now looking for a carreer as an office assistant. She has figured out how to use a copier. Yes, all those pages you see on the floor were at one point nice crisp white pages. Now nothing has been copied onto them and aparently nothing looks like a patch of grey (green when the cartridge runs out)
Anybody want to hire her?

THe time is near

Wow, looking at the status of my blue fluffy sweater, it looks like I might actually be finishing that one soon. Right now, it looks like a blue striped fluffy tube top. (Sadly my boobs can't hold up the tube top, I have tried.) All it needs is a total of 48" of arm and then it will be done. Wow, I almost can't believe it.
This is all for today's post, I gotta knit those arms.

Crumby sunday

This sunday officially sucked. At least the end of it. I had to deal with crappy stupid people, and I couldn't escape. Then my friend had gotten me the cutest little pink capri warm-ups, turns out they didn't fit me. And even if I would try to find them in a different size, it still won't not fit, just something about the way they were made.
The thing that cheered my up was reading Michelle's blog, where she forgot to make armholes. Yarn, it is so nice to you but if it should act crappy and stupid, you can put it away in a bin and not let it out 'til it behaves, you can throw it across the room where the dog/cat will get it and inflict some pain or you can sit on it, forgetting it was ever there. (Best thing, these things are all legal when you do it to yarn.)
On top is a picture of a baby sweater, I will give it to my class mate who is expecting a baby in October. I crocheted it, it went so fast. I wish sweaters my size could go that fast.

Nerd alert in this post!

Before I go all geeky, let me share this with you. I was planning on working on my blue sweater but Ophie thought is would make a nice blanket for her to lay on. Cute scene, so I thought I would take a picture, display some of my other current project (started another wash cloth). And then Ophie decided she wanted to take up knitting herself. She truly is a knitting kitty. But she is not quiet getting the hang of it, she insists on eating the needles and the yarn.
Also, let me introduce you to the huge ball of yarn that I have slept with on occasion (I blame that ball for me being single, but then I hold it, it is so fluffy and I can't stay mad at it for long.)

Nerd alert coming up! Read only if you can handle the extreme geekness. For those who are familiar with the show quantum leap and HR-diagrams. A friend told me there was one of those (HR-diagram) in the opening sequence of the show. It is funny (to the geeks amung us) because the diagram has nothing to do with anything quantum, much less jumping from person to person making right what once went wrong. (I warned you for the nerd factor.)
But I digress, I watched the opening sequence, no diagram. Now I must spend my free time watching sci fi channel looking for the mysterious show that has this diagram in the opening sequence. Sigh, rough life.

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SoCal driving

Few days ago, Michelle was talking about the things that don't suck about driving in Southern California. Needless to say, it was a short little list. But she mentioned that one of the things that works really well down here : the zipper. And I have to agree, people down here do apply the zipper thing when merging during busy traffic (road work for example)
And I have a theory of why. I think that many people have gotten into low speed collisions. Two lanes are merging, neither driver will let the other go first and at 5 mph, the two cars crash. This will have undoubtably happened very often. So with all their road rage, the zipper is the only time that drivers can show off their zen like moves of civility before honking their horns and flipping off other cars because traffic is going so slow.

The good, the bad, the yarn

This is the good. I started this patch that I will turn into the front of a pillow. I finished it today and that means I freed up a cable of the Denise needle set. Yeah. I can't quiet count this as a finished project because I still need to sew it up. It will take me forever, but that is OK. I got another cable now, so I can cast on a project without having to resort to the "poor woman's cable" aka a piece of yarn strung through the stitches. Ain't too proud to use it though, just to ashamed to admit how many blankets and scarves and things I have cast on.

The good, the bad, the yarn

This is the bad, I couldn't help myself. I was over at Michelle's place and I inspired her to do something good. She frogged hre sock and her pistachio. It needed to be done according to her. So she did something good and to keep the balance in the universe, I had to do something bad. I cast on for my lapghan. It goes fast because I use size 15 needles. I just keep telling myself, I did to save the universe, to keep the balance of good and bad.

The good, the bad, the yarn

Obvisously this is the yarn. At the tri-anual yarn sale at the yarn lady. It will become a cardigan one day. Maybe a little argyle pattern across the chest. We'll see...

Feels like Sunday

Today, I went to the yarn store, the yarn lady had another bag sale. After I told myself I could not start a new project before I finished another one, I started one anyway and I went and bought more yarn. Now I have to go to a bbq, but I don't want to. I want to stay home and cast on for yet another project. (That would be the 10th or 11th project I would be working on)
I feel so bad, but so happy with the new yarn. Not is a social mood at all. So I can't wait 'til it really is Sunday because then I get to sit on my butt, watch scifi channel and knit. I might finish my lapghan (new project, bad me, bad bad me) or my friend's blanket (only 10 rows to go)

As for the kitty, well, she is still in her force field, it got a bit smaller though and she has also gotten my shoe fetish. But I think she wants to BE the shoe...

Her force field is up again 

I want to be a pair of shoes 

Homework

This is a blanket that I promised to make for a friend. He lives in Europe and is coming over again. I say again, because I had planned to finish this the last time he came out. Back then, I had 14 rows to go but each row takes me about 1/2 hour. So by the time he came, I wasn't quiet finished, I still had 12 rows to go. (You can do the math yourself of how many rows I crocheted, I am too embarrassed to admit it myself.)
This time I have until the end of July to put on 11 rows (I did 1 last night) and connect the bottom patch (for which I will have to do a little fudging)
Wish me luck.
I also have this cool idea in my head (we'll see when it's finished) for a lapket with fluffy black yarn. Don't have the patiences for a blanket. But I told myself I can't start it until I finish at least one of my nine already started projects. So there is a double reason to finish my friends blanket.

out-of-work model

Maybe you noticed that my usual model was not there on the other picture. Well, I told you I temporarily laid her off. And this is what she's been doing to fill the time.
Ooh, the horror of being an out-of-work model

...

...but they still send her flowers... tasty flowers

Aother one of my side projects. I bought a fresh basil plant, too expensive to buy the separate leaves in the store. And I make a little hanging basket for it. Now we have a hanging monster basil plant. The leaves are huge.

This is the rest of the herb garden. Still need to hang those up.