lifelong knitter

oh help and bother....

My boybird LOVES video games.....and he is a Looney Tunes fanatic, so as you can probably imagine, The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout for the original NES Nintendo is a particular obsession.
Thank Heavens for ebay, where I have located several copies of the game and a back up console.
Now I have to replace the 72 pin connector, as we have the dreaded BLINKING and Blue Screen issues.
Good thing he has a Mommy who can FIX things!
You gamers out there?
I heard a rumor yesterday when I was out with the BOY,
that the original NES games are available on CD...
is this TRUE?
Be still my Mommy heart, because that would alleviate much
Gnashing of Teeth
and late night workbench time
in our little world.
sigh.
We had a fabulous visit,
alittle shorter than I would have liked, however.
I took him to Barnes and Noble,
where his special order had come in...
He's been saving his money for the DVD
box set of the JETSONS!
We sang the theme (daughter Judy....)
all the way back to his nest, where he LEAPED out of
the Mommymobile and ran in to watch his favorite episodes.
He doesn't have much functional language, but if prompted,
guess what is on his Birthday List?
ZELDA.
Apparently there is a new version? For his Gameboy Advance?
eeeeeps.
I humbly bow in your direction if you can help me with these
*issues*.

This time next week I'll be on the road to MD Sheep and Wool!
Wooohooo....

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a date with a certain TIGER.....

Kiri

Okay, so I went to my LYS to get a birthday present for my Mother,
who is finally, after all these years,
Knitting Again
and she wants to try felting.
So I got her the new little Vogue
Knitting book with the rainbow tea cozy on the cover.
Mission Accomplished.
Then I started talking to MaryAnn
about another Rescue Poodle (his name is Romeo....)
and what did I spy out of the corner of my little eye
but THREE balls of lovely celery green
Kidsilk Haze.
I was gonna bring it to Sheep and Wool, the perfect
lightweight project, and I thought I might get some input from
some of the Amazing Lace Knitters who will be in attendance...

so I cast on, just to SEE
whether I liked the mohair....
before I knew it,
sixteen rows!
There's something about the structure of this pattern
that makes perfect sense to my hand/brain connection,
and the Kid Silk Haze...yumsters!
Isn't it funny?
My Mother wants to knit the hippest felted purse
and I'm making a mohair SHAWL....
To practice, for when my spinning gets fine enough
to make my own Pi.

Tomorrow night is the launch party for TIGER at my local Apple store, and I am supposed to be
at a charity Art Auction where one of my paintings will be on the block.
What's a geek to DO?

Off to see the Boybird this afternoon, hope your day is scrumptious!

Somewhere...

Over the Rainbow...bluebirds fly.
Birds fly over the Rainbow, why then oh why can't I?

Lyrics from my Daddy's favorite song, and one that I dearly love.
sigh.

I finished the Autism Awareness Project yesterday and had a profoundly
UnAutistic moment.

*what if nobody likes it?*

These are the moments when I wish to be MORE like my kiddos instead of having Normal Syndrome.
Since I have NS, I worry about what other people think and whether they will like me, and adjust my behavior accordingly. This seems CRAZY to my daughter, and we frequently have conversations in which she wants to know WHY I would want people to like me if they were going to not like me just the way I was, or care about the things that are important to me.

I am always at a loss to explain to her why I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to please people who are simply not interested, or just miserable in general.

We have a saying in our family...*You can't please all of the people all of the time, and some of the people will NEVER be pleased any of the time, no matter how hard you try!*

So, truth be told, the pattern came out EXACTLY as I had envisioned it, the yarn was a delight to knit, and I'm THRILLED with the finished project. PROUD, in fact.
I'm delighted to contribute the pattern to the project to raise money for Autism Awareness, and hope that someone else will enjoy knitting and wearing it as well...

This weekend there will be a Real Photo Shoot of the project.
I am SO excited about it,
and as soon as I send off all of the files,
I'll post the link to the pattern.

In the meantime, since we are almost at the end of April, which is Autism Awareness month...
please add *Thinking in pictures* by Temple Grandin
to your reading list. She is SO much like my daughter bird, and reading anything she has written
always makes me feel like I have a passport and an interpreter to the Planet Aspergers.

Blessings to you and yours....

After

Clearly, I need more work on my cough ::crochet:: cough,
and of course, most of you will immediately see the glaring error
in the middle of the shawl...
but I still love it.
Just the thing for these wacky weather days of late.

Perhaps I'll wear it to Sheep and Wool...
you'd spot me in THIS,
would you not?

Before Blocking

I finished the small shawl last night...
including the Crochet Cast Off...which made me feel so uncoordinated and clumsy that I
was Determined to master it.

Supposedly, after a nice bath and a recline on the OBT,
I'll have lovely, scalloped edging to show you tomorrow.

More Summery Knitting..

This is my version of the Old Shale Shawl from Piecework January/February 2005...
Evelyn A. Clark, you are a genius!
I LOVE this pattern!
Koigu from the stash (except for the yellow, which I SPUN! and dyed with leftover Easter Egg coloring!)
I was trying to acheive a sunset over the ocean Technicolor kinda thang....

Hope your weekend is HAPPY and filled with knittable moments!

I FELT like...

I needed a bag to go with all of my springy and summer clothes....mostly turquoise and lime green, with jeans and white tee shirts...ah how I LOVE this weather!
So, with two skeins of Cascade 128 tweed, color 7607
I made THIS

I used my favorite parts of three or four patterns I've made before, and improvised...
It is the perfect size and shape, but it still needs SOMETHING.
What do you think?
A big ole felted Daisy?

YAWN...

Sometime after midnight, I finished the swatch and gave it a quick bath...
Here it is today, reclining gracefully on the Official Blocking Towel...

about 6 inches by 6 inches, it is some incredibly WARM, thick knitting!
There is something so empowering about understanding the process of spinning and plying,
not just from READING about it (Lord knows I've got STACKS of SpinOff magazines to prove I've
READ about the process...) but actually FEELING the fiber flow through your fingers and twist into
YARN...
I made YARN! All by myself!
Maggi said it best...Neato, indeed!

Spinster

The wheel she is assembled...after a quick tech support phone call from Sara!
I happily spun two bobbins full and plied them...
see?

That's the Mystery fiber Sara sent along with the wheel and the swift...
plied with some Alpaca I had around the studio...
and now, even though it is WAAAY past my bedtime...
I'm gonna go swatch me some handspun.

Some Assembly required

Sara says it only takes one screw...
ahem.
Sara should know, as this used to be HER wheel...

Poodle is for SCALE, dontcha know...