Yarnification

Dawn asked “What holds your hooks?” Mine is not so pretty as hers or the ones I’m seeing in other people’s blogs, but it’s functional.

It was born as one of those plastic tubes of 3D Doritos. I saw it in the store and thought it would do admirably for holding my hooks, so I brought it home, ate one Dorito (yech—I like regular Doritos but these were icky), dumped the rest of them into a tupperware container for everyone else to eat, and washed out the container and pulled the label off.

And voilà! A portable hook case that holds everything except my Q hook. Besides the hooks, there are yarn needles & threaders, folding scissors, a little ruler, and a tiny sharpener for the folding scissors in there.

The pop-off lid is handy, too—when I’m using the yarn needles, I can put the needle and threader in the lid when I’m not using them so I don’t lose them, which I’m prone to do.

Just FYI… I always intend to reply to my comments. But life keeps getting in the way of that, and I feel bad for not replying when people took the time to leave a comment. So—if you’ve commented and I never answered, I’m sorry. I’m not ignoring you, I’m just very bad at answering my email these days.

A little while back I pasted the list of blog links from the sidebar into a separate entry (this was Julie’s suggestion) and then linked to the entry from the sidebar, and it seems to be working out well. I thought about just linking to my Bloglines thingamawhatsit, but I really, really love all the pretty link buttons and didn’t want to have to give them up, so I did it this way.

But—there’s got to be a but, right?—the list of link buttons is nowhere near as long as my list of blogs at Bloglines. So what to do? I’m a little too pressed for time to go through it all at once, so my goal is to add one more blog from my Bloglines listing to the links entry every day. (Well, every day that I’m at work, since that’s where I have internet access.)

I managed to add two today, so that’s a start, right?

Found at Marvie’s:

bold the states you’ve been to, underline the states you’ve lived in and italicize the state you’re in now…

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C

While I was recovering from the oral surgery (once I was feeling up to it, that is), I did a bunch of work on the beaded shawl, and I finished these up:

They’re Marlo’s ribbed slippers, done in my leftover Sugar ’n’ Cream cotton (cornflower blue). They’re pretty cozy. I usually do this pattern with an I hook (I have two or three pairs besides these ones—they’re my favorite slipper pattern), but since I was using cotton and it doesn’t have as much give, I went up to a J hook and then left one row out of the rounds before the ankle and one row out of the rows after the ankle (but before the heel decrease), and they fit great.

Yes, my desk is that messy, and yes, I am wearing those raggedy jeans at work. They’re only that raggedy at the ankles, though, and it has to do with a possibly inadvisable vow not to buy more jeans until I can fit into a size 10. (I’m in a 12 now.) The “possibly inadvisable” part comes from the fact that I haven’t worked out in quite a while. I really need to start up again, though, because my muscles have become all mushy and I’m having back trouble again, which is a sure sign that I need more exercise.

I’m making progress on the beaded shawl. The end was even in sight last night until I noticed I’d made a mistake about five rows back, and it wasn’t one of those teeny tiny mistakes that nobody but me would ever notice—it was a big ’un. So I frogged back those five rows and then got ready for bed because I was too tired to face redoing all that. Still, not long now.

Quickest scarf I’ve ever done. I bought a ball of Patons Evita (in Costa–it’s all pretty greens and yellows and oranges and grays) a few weeks ago and didn’t know what I wanted to do with it. It’s one of those railroad type yarns, with shiny thready bits alternating with soft fuzzy bits.

Last night while I was lounging around on the bed feeling sorry for myself over my very painful jaw and tooth, I decided I needed a distraction. I decided all the projects I have going at the moment required too much thinking for my pain-addled, highly medicated state, and then I remembered I’d been toying with the idea of a skinny scarf, one that would be an accessory rather than a warm outdoors scarf. And then I remembered that ball of Evita.

No pattern—just took a P hook, started with ch6, then did 5 sc across each row until I ran out of yarn. Weaving the ends in was no walk in the park—there’s got to be some trick to it, but I sure don’t know what it is. I used my #0 steel hook and pulled it through and around and through and around until it seemed secure, since I definitely didn’t have a yarn hook that seemed able to handle it.

Anyway, I’m happy with how it turned out. It’s long enough to wrap it around my neck and have the ends fall maybe 5 inches past my hips. I also took a closeup of what it looks like—the pic is a bit blurry, but you get the idea anyway.

Dropped by the library on the way to work this morning, and they had three crochet books for me. Two were ones I sent for through interlibrary loan a while back—Cozy Crochet again, since I wanted to have another look at that fabric basket pattern, and The Big Book of Scrap Crochet Projects, since I need some ideas for using up some of my yarn—and the third one was Donna Kooler’s Crocheted Afghans, which had just come in. The librarian, who is a very nice person, had set it aside in case I wanted to see it, which I very much did. There are some gorgeous afghans in there. I probably won’t make any right now, but I want to poke through the book and drool over the afghans.

I’m still waiting on 24-Hour Crochet Projects, but it looks like it’ll be a while on that one. I’ve had a hold on it for over a month now, but I just checked regional library catalog via telnet, and the only library in the system that has a copy only just got theirs. I’m third in line, so it’ll probably be another month or more. Crochet books definitely seem to be kept out longer than fiction. But there are four people after me, so it could be worse.

Today’s photo: I’m on round 13 of 17 here, I think, but I’m planning on adding more rounds at the end. No, I don’t really know what it’s for yet, but I’m happy with how it’s coming out. It’s definitely going to need blocked within an inch of its life though. It’s doing this sort of goofy 3-D thing with the pineapples being raised up and the other parts being lower down (though in the photo it almost looks the opposite, some kind of optical illusion thing going on there).

I guess it’s a good thing I was already planning on buying an extra box or two of pins for blocking the shawl when its finished, huh? (No progress pics of the shawl because it seems to have no plans to start looking like anything other than a bunchy mess until it’s blocked.)

Last night something astonishing happened. Don and I were in Columbus buying supplies for the store, and as it happened we needed to go to a bunch of craft stores. I was in a Michael’s, a Hobby Lobby, a Joann’s Etc, and two (or was it three?) Walmarts, and I bought no yarn whatsoever. None. I bought elasticized thread for the socks I’m making (I made the cuff on one sock about one or two rows wider than it really needed to be. It’s not big enough to be worth redoing but it’s a touch loose, so I’m going to run some of that thread around the top to snug it up a bit) and some stitch markers, and I ended up with a bunch of free pattern leaflets, but I didn’t buy yarn. I almost bought a set of double-pointed needles to try knitting socks but decided to put them back since I probably ought to practice a little more (okay, a lot more) on regular (and bigger) needles before I try that.

When Don saw that I wasn’t buying any yarn (and Hobby Lobby had practically half of their yarn on sale—a lot of the Lion Brand stuff was about half off, even), he asked me if I was feeling okay and checked my forehead. I don’t know, none of it was calling to me last night. I’ll probably be kicking myself later when I go to buy something that was on sale for really cheap last night, like after the last time I saw yarn at half off in Hobby Lobby. (It was Red Heart in some nifty variegated print, I think Woodsy, and it was marked down to something like $1.09 a skein. And I didn’t buy any and regretted it later.)

I dunno, I guess just couldn’t think of what things I’d been thinking of that I didn’t already have yarn for, and I usually hate to buy pricier yarn (and for me anything that costs more than $2.50 a skein is pricier) without a specific project in mind.

And I really should work on using up the yarn in my stash now that I’ve got that scrap projects book out of the library…

In the interest of making the main page easier to load, I’ve moved my links off the side bar. So here’s a list (incomplete, always in progress!) of various crochet/knit/craft blogs I read (if you see yourself listed here without a button and have one that I can download, please let me know where I can find a copy!)

Adventures of a Stashaholic



Cheryl’s Arts ’n’ Crafts

Crochet Bla Bla

The Crochet Dude
Crochet Sleuth

Dreams of Nyssa



Hazelnut Latte


Jinglelady’s Crochet

Karen’s Knitting and Crochet Parlor
Karla’s Korner
Life’s a Stitch 4 Nancy
Little Hooks



Monster Crochet

My Little Crochet World

On Hooks and Needles

Pajama Monologues


That Chick Crochets!


Tracey’s Clever Blog
Ulla’s Fiber Blog


Wrapped in Fiber

I’ve been suffering from Attention Span of a Flea Syndrome with regard to my projects. I keep bouncing from one thing to the next and starting new things almost at random.

I worked on the socks for a while yesterday, and I believe I’m half a sock away from having an entire pair.

Then, since I was still bent out of shape that I couldn’t get the pineapple bookmark to come out right, I started making a pineapple square. Well, no, wait. Let me back up a bit. There’s this cabinet in my bedroom with a glass door that’s divided into two panes. Hanging inside the top pane there’s a beautiful embroidered piece that Sara did (I should get a photo of that sometime and post it here). Don and I were looking at the cabinet yesterday and thinking it would be great if we could find something that would fit in the bottom half, which looks a little bare now that the embroidery piece is in the top half.

And then I had this brainstorm—I’ve been doing all this thread crochet. And I keep drooling over everyone’s gorgeous doilies on the Thread-Along, but I haven’t been making doilies because I wouldn’t quite know what to do with them when I was finished. But what if I made a larger thread piece, maybe the size of a large doily or so, and put it in the bottom half of that cabinet? That would take care of my hankering to make a doily and at the same time give us something to put in there.

So I started looking through my crochet books, and I found some things that looked interesting. One of the things I saw was this pineapple square. Now, I have no idea how big this will be when it’s done, whether it’ll be the piece I put inside the cabinet, or anything like that. But I wanted to make it, dammit, so I started working on it. This is after 6 of 17 rounds—I’ve barely gotten past the center, but I thought I’d post a photo of it anyway since I don’t have any other photos today.

I sincerely hope it stops puckering—that just started during the last round I did—but if not I figure it’ll go away if I block it half to death.

And I have to say I’ve discovered the joys of DMC Baroque thread. Thread in a pull skein! Yay! No ball rolling around all over the place unless I stick it in a ziploc bag!

I finished the belt last night, but I don’t know if I’ll manage to get a picture of it because it doesn’t look like much when it’s lying around by itself (I tried, and it didn’t photograph well), and I’m not really so sure how I feel about a photo of it on me, since that would involve taking a picture of my midsection, and, well, I’m a bit thicker around the middle than I’d like. Um, make that about 25-35 pounds thicker. Course that’s not all around my middle, but plenty of it is—I’m an apple—and let’s just say I’m not real keen on the idea. But I might have Don take a couple of pictures to see how they come out.

Other than that, I’ve been working on thread projects. I think I got two rows done on the beaded shawl yesterday. I’m aiming at having it done in the general vicinity of early March. The number of rows left sounds intimidating, but being a shawl and all that they get shorter every time, so I keep telling myself there’s not as much work left as it sounds. And Don says he has a giant 4′ x 4′ piece of nice thick cardboard I can use to block it—my other blocking boards are a lot smaller.

I’ve also been playing around with a cute pineapple bookmark, but I may scrap that project because mine definitely looks more like a mushroom than a pineapple…

First: My life is saved! (Well, my wrist and neck are saved anyway…)

The old touchpad died about a week and a half ago, and I’ve been using the Mouse of Flaming Carpal Tunnel Doom ever since. I swear I almost hugged the UPS man when he brought the package with the new touchpad today! And believe me, I didn’t waste any time getting it installed. I am so glad to be rid of that other mouse!

Karla tagged me with the music quiz this morning. I’ve wanting to do it all day and just finally got the time to sit down with it…

1. Total amount of music files on your computer:
About 6.5MB, according to the search I did. I don’t really keep music stored in the computer. Once in a while I’ll pop a CD in while I’m working, but the sound quality of these speakers leaves something to be desired! And since I’m on a dialup connection, downloading music is a pretty tedious process, so I do most of my music listening either in the car or at home while cleaning.

2. The last CD you bought:
I’m pretty sure that was John Prine’s Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings. It’s been a while since I bought any, so I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it was that one. Lately I’ve picked up some used records more recently (yes, I do have a working turntable!) but I’m having the hardest time remembering what they were. A Buffalo Bills album, maybe something by Johnny Cash? I remember that day I was hoping I’d find something by Gram Parsons, but I can’t remember what I actually got LOL

3. The last song you listened to before reading this message:
At work the oldies station is on most of the time, and I’m racking my brain trying to think of what they were playing before/when I read this. Neil Diamond, I think. Sweet Caroline maybe—they play that one a lot.

4. Name 5 songs you listen to often or that mean a lot to you
I tend to listed to the same album (or compilation tape, in the car) over and over again for a while, so in the interest of diversity I’ve tried to pick out five of my favorite songs instead off just five songs of whatever tape I’ve been listening to in the car lately:
Lake Marie (John Prine)
Montrose (Steeleye Span. the long version on their live album.)
Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie)
Shine on You Crazy Diamond (Pink Floyd)
Crooked Piece of Time (John Prine) [had to come back and fix this—I had down Clocks and Spoons before, and that's a great song but not at all the one I meant to put down]

5. Who will you pass this stick to (3 people) and why?
This is tough, since I bet it’s made the rounds, but I’m going off now to see who I can find who hasn’t already posted it…

Okay, how about:
Jewels, Anna, and Heather. Why? Cause they’re folks I read who I don’t think have gotten this yet!

Dang—somebody else already got Jewels. I’ll have to find another person, but it’s getting on toward midnight so I’ll have to look tomorrow…