Hello!

Hello friends!


Over and over I've drafted a catch-up post, but never got around to posting them.  I do want to start posting here more often.

I am still knitting, quite a bit really. And playing video games. I've fallen in love with watching Livestream (or VOD later) D&D and other rolepaying sessions.  I still play with my group every Wednesday, but also I've made some really great friends through the beautiful, inclusive, and encouraging communities online.


One of my favorites of these is The Indoor Adventurer (Twitch) (Youtube) (Patreon) (Podbean - Audio only)

Becoming a subscriber on Twitch or supporting the channel on Patreon gets you in their super fun Discord chat where we have a lot of fun and just keep each other entertained.

There's 2 main D&D Shows.
Monday night is a Homebrew campaign, and Tuesdays they play the current D&D adventure, Dragondee Waterdeep Dragon Heist. 

If you look at the VODs or check out the YouTube channel you might see someone you know in some of the one-shots :)



Now, here's some knitting since that's probably why you're here (if you still are)

I cleaned my room this week and found a sock project I'd forgotten existed. I checked Ravelry, and found that I'd cast it on nearly 7 years ago in February of 2012!!!

All I had to do was knit about 3 stitches and do the toe of the 2nd sock!

So, now I have a new pair of 7 year old socks. YAY!

 I hope you're well and happy out there. Say hi if you're still around or if you happen upon this!
Next time I should write about my bullet journal!

Summer summary

Well, the summer is drawing to a close, and I for one am thankful the cooler weather is coming.
A few weeks ago I went to North Carolina to visit my family, and mom & I escaped the heat in Maggie Valley, up in the mountains. I've posted some pictures here, but I do have a whole set of all the roses at Lake Junaluska & other pictures over here on my flickr.









On the way there we had a little yarn crawl at Black Mountain yarn shop which was a very lovely shop! We got some neat gadgets there and also at another shop, I apologize I don't remember their name....
these stitch markers all have words on them like center, decrease, increase etc, so you can place them to remind you of what to do when you get to them!

I also finally finished my Lanesplitter skirt! It's a little bit tight....


While I was gone, Tripsie went to the vet to get some treatment for her skin issues. Unfortunately she seemed to pick up a bit of a bug :( Poor little girl.


fortunately it passed quickly. They both went after I got back and now they're up to date on all their shots.



Kitty continues to get stronger and more active in the new house! I'm really happy that he's bounced back so much, though it makes me sad he was unhealthy for so long and now it seems the old townhouse was the cause of it.



We've been really enjoying our real sized kitchen & dining room, as well as the grill. I've made lasagna, and also like to make myself pasta for lunch.


No Tripsie, you cannot has.



Hanging out in the back yard while Hubs grills burgers.


There's a baby explosion at work, so I've been making blankets and booties. These are for my co-worker Karen, or really for little Caledonia (Latin word for Scotland, I had to Wikipedia it). I didn't finish the 2nd bootie in time for the baby shower, so I wrapped the blanket, 1 bootie, and the yarn with needles stuck in. It's all finished now :)


I've also been working on a pair of socks, using some of my Yarn Pirate stash and this Mermaid's Lagoon pattern from Knitty


I also finally made good on my promise to a sweet little girl, this is Minnie, and I've been promising her a sweater for YEARS!


My other canine friends are Toulouse and Renior, the puppies of my D&D DM James. They like to hang out with all of us while we play and try to get some of our tasty treats.


Of course the big news this week has been the earthquake & hurricane Irene. The earthquake was scary, but only because it was my first one. It is very unsettling to have the ground under you move!! Everything is fine though. We barely had any effects from the storm, just a cloudy rainy weekend. But Mike & Janine came to see us for the weekend, and I'm hoping they return to Richmond with no bad surprises. One of their neighbors had a tree fall.


Next weekend my family will come up for the long weekend, and mom will see my house for the first time! I'm so excited :)

What I've been up to

Yesterday I went to the Old Liberty Fiber Faire held at the Lion's Club center in Bedford, VA. It was a lovely time, as is anything put together by the wonderful Dana and Dianne. Unfortunately, the weather didn't turn out :( It was rainy & windy and cold. I ended up staying only about an hour, and shortly after I left Tornado Warnings were sounded, so all the outside vendors packed up and went home.
**update**

They posted some pictures from the event on Facebook
Fortunately I'd gotten my shopping done already ;)

And yes, I am on a yarn diet, but I did have one project in mind to purchase yarn for, and I only made one extra yarn purchase! See! I was good.

First up is some lovely Alpaca from Taylored Fibers
I still am not sure what I will make with it, and as I told the vendor yesterday I might just leave it in the skein and pet it. It is SOOOO SOFT.


Next up is a little pouch from the lovely Sadie Rose. If you recall I already have a draw string bag in the same fabric. Love her bags, she does such good quality work, and so many of her fabrics are cat related!


While there were so many lovely yarns there, many of them were sock yarn or laceweight. Which of course I already have too much of. The one project I was allowing myself to buy yarn for calls for Aran Weight yarn. I want to knit the Lanesplitter skirt! So unfortunately, there wasn't much yarn of the right weight, and none in repeatable colorways and affordable to get enough for my project at the show.

So on my way home I stopped at Backstitches and picked up some Superwash Cascade (and a really pretty pen).


I'm also nearly done with my first April sock for the Year of Socks Stashdown. I'm really enjoying this pattern, and think the yarn & pattern are working really well together.


I'll have plenty of knitting time next weekend while we are visiting my family for Easter, so I feel confident I'll have the pair done by the end of the month.

not dead yet

Oh boy it's been a heck of a 1st quarter. But I'm hanging in there.

I did finish my March socks a few weeks ago, and shared them on the Year of Stash Socks blog.

I've also already gotten started on my April socks.


I'm really pleased with how the pattern/yarn combo is turning out so far!

Definitely looks like leaves :) Seems a bit more fall-like than spring, but that's ok.

One of the things about hand-knit socks is hand- washing them. I washed most of my socks today by soaking them in the sink with some Soak, and then letting them air dry.



more are hanging in the bathroom.. I think I need a second thingy.
I still have not bought ANY yarn, except for one skein which I purchased with a Loopy Ewe gift certificate Hubs gave me. I've gotten so good at avoiding temptation it took me several days to even pick out what I wanted!!!

I ended up picking out some Dream in color starry, in a really pretty burgundy shade.
I've heard that the electric conductivity in silver makes it so that cloth with silver in it will still allow you to use touch devices like iphones & ipads and whatnot. So we'll see!

Hope everyone is doing well :)

January Recap

So far my goals are going fairly well!

I did finish my January socks, with over a week to spare:


AND! I have not bought ANY YARN!

I also went to the gym twice. Now, twice in one month doesn't sound like a lot, but right now the only night I can really go is Wednesday, and last Wednesday we had snow and the gym closed, and another Wednesday I had to work overtime.

Work is a bit crazy... to put it lightly. but I'll get through it and things will get better!

Why hello there!

As some of you have seen on Plurk and Facebook,or have guessed by my silence, I do have a new laptop. I did try to post about it the weekend I got it, but blogger was being a doofus.
Anyways,


Like my previous laptop, this is an Acer. I really think they're quality machines but not expensive. This one has a bit of a rubbery texture on top, which is nice.


Also, it has a number pad! I am so grateful to my tech-savvy Hubs , who was able to restore all my information. When I first booted it up, and opened Firefox, it loaded all the same tabs I'd been looking at!

Even though my addiction to Facebook games has resumed, I have been staying busy knitting and such.

I have been steadily working on the blanket, which you may remember from the Olympic Knitting events last winter. I am finally close to being done! Just 12 more rows and then the bind off.

Wednesday nights I go to my friend's house and watch guys play D&D while I knit. One of the guys asked me to make him a scarf, so I crocheted this for him (in exchange for cookies!)

And keeping my promise to Hubs , after finishing the pair of socks for me, I got started on a pair for him. I finished the first one this morning. The yarn is Zauberball, and I knit it on my brand new Signature needles, which I LURVE.

I like the color changes in the yarn, but there was one spot where I guess there had been a break and the manufacturer tied it. But it messed up the color change! I tried putting the heel there but it still drives me nuts. I figure mostly it'll be unseen though.


Tomorrow I will blog again, finally reviewing something I promised someone I would before my old laptop even died!
Until then, have a good night!

Busy times ish

Hello friends. No, I still don't have a new laptop. Still, mostly enjoying small bursts of productivity. I do have a desktop computer, which is in our spare room with Hubs' computer, so we've been spending more time together. Even if it is back-to-back heh.

Tripsie has been enjoying this and hanging out on her fort a LOT.

"I like when you're both in here to see how pretty I am. "

I had two pairs of socks, which only had one sock each, so I have finished the second sock of both of those.

I think I've shown these previously, I did finish the 2nd one. I still think the 2nd one ended up a little smaller, but it's ok. For some reason I can't find them right now and I apparently deleted the FO pic thinking I'd already uploaded it, so here's the same shot as before.


They ended up not matching exactly, which would have been nearly impossible, but they were surprisingly close.

I also finally started and finished the 2nd of this pair,

It took me less than a week! Very easy pattern. I kind of wish I'd thought to reverse the pattern on the second sock so that the lines pointed in towards each other. I hope that when Knitting Dragon is finished with college that he resumes dying yarn again!


True to my word, after knitting 2 socks for me (yes, so that gave me 2 new pairs but still, I only finished 2 new socks for me) I am now onto the next pair for Hubs . Using Zauberball I got from the Loopy Ewe and my beautiful new Signature DPN's.


Basic sock, it's just 2X2 ribbing alternating with plain stockinette. I hate purling the first stitch on a needle, so there's 4 columns of 4 knit stitches in a row. I'll call it a design element.
The Zauberball reminds me a lot of Mini Mochi, but doesn't seem to be as splitty. Then again that might be those stiletto points on the needles :D

The furbabies are continuing to ... co-exist.. This picture was taken about 5 minutes after Tripsie bit Kitty so hard she had fur in her mouth.
Tripsie: "Whatever, I was trying to give him a kiss."
Kitty: "I hate you."

Silly critters.

Post 300! Good News/Bad News

Well, I kept waiting on the perfect thing to post about because this is Post 300!! For my plurk friends, imagine the little happy dance smiley face.

I considered posting about how happy I still am being married to Hubs, which seemed timely because my cousin got married last weekend. We had a blast hanging out with my family at our river cabin, as we always do!



I could post about my nearly finished socks, which I cast on the first one in July of 2009! I'm working on finishing up some old projects, and this is an important lesson on either finishing quickly or taking good notes. I couldn't remember for sure how many stitches I used, or even which needles. If you look carefully, I think you can see the difference in the stitch size. But, the socks themselves are almost the exact same size, and that's all that really matters ;) Hoping to finish up the toe on the second one tonight.



Or, I could talk about how silly Tripsie is, hanging out on her fort. I think she's a little too heavy for it, it rocks all over the place as she jumps up or down. Kitty's been getting around a little better lately, he comes upstairs every once in a while!



But then.. . Friday night, my beloved laptop died. Which, wasn't completely unexpected. It was over 4 years old after all, and considering how hard I've been on it...
I used it to play World of Warcraft for over 2 years, as well as some other games. It only had one cooling fan and one vent, which was on the bottom, so it has always had heat problems. I have used it almost every single day for four years, many times leaving it on for days at a time.
It really was a great machine, and I'm definitely going to get the same brand if possible (Acer).




However, this may have been a bit of a blessing in disguise, as I've had to find other ways to occupy my time all weekend. Yes, I do have the desktop computer, which Hubs built for me to play games on, but it just isn't the same as sitting at my laptop while watching TV or movies.

So, yesterday afternoon I started to tear things out of the closet in our bedroom. This closet started out as "my" closet, but over the years a lot of STUFF has been put in the bottom of it. Empty boxes, all the linens, suitcases, you name it. In addition, we had pretty much ignored our hallway closet aside from the top shelf ever since our apartment flooded 2 years ago.

So, I also emptied out the hall closet. Wooboy did I find some treasures. Including a whole pound of Lion's Brand Homespun, aren't I lucky?

Anyways. Here it is all nice and empty and clean. (I wont' mention that apparently the previous tenants kept a litter box in the closet, so when the carpet was ripped up there was cat litter all around the edges)


The bags are some of the treasures I found in the bottom of it, the shoes were some of the things I wanted to get into it and out of the bedroom floor.


And I wanted the linens out of the floor of my closet.

I'm actually pretty proud of myself..

I got a hanging organizer to hold the shoes, and as an added bonus it had 3 little partitions which I've used to organize our hats, scarves, and gloves/mittens. (I also feel very bad because while I have 2 handknit hats, 3 sets of gloves/mittens, and 5 scarves/shawls, I have absolutely nothing handmade for Hubs. I need to get on that!) I also hung up all our winter coats, and got them off the stair railing.


I found the perfect sized storage container for the linens, which fit everything but one bedspread, and it had just enough room to the side for my big boots.


Horray!!! Maybe I'll wait a little while to get a new laptop. *ponder*