Oooh La la

http://siansbitsandpieces.blogspot.com/2008/06/altered-microscope-slide-alcohol-inks.html

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/cr_jewelry/article/0,,DIY_13762_4038459,00.html

Very cool. Saving for later.....

Deadly Art

A random act of insanity caused me to recently buy a copy of Haute Doll. I was expecting a hoard of creepy little babies and barbies with equally freaky frilly doll collectors, you know, the ones with rooms dedicated to their "little friends". Instead there were sophisticated, ultra modern works of art in the shape of beautiful little people.

So now, I am reincarnating yet another one of my hobbies - sculpting with clay. I never truly perfected my abilities and am now reading online tutorials.

The below was found at random and gave me quite the raised eyebrow and chuckle.

RE: Licking tools-
Yes, bad idea. I point-up Kolinski sable brush tips by pulling them over my tongue-- until a freelancer mentioned that there are rare cases of anthrax attributed to ingesting what is essentially weasel fur on a stick...

Re: Licking tools....

In the next town, Montclaire, was a watch face manfufacturing plant at the turn of the century. Quite a few women were working from home. And they used to paint the glowing radium infested glow mix onto the watch faces. After a prolonged exposure to the radiation and litteraly gobbling that suff up of years, their faces litteraly started to fall off. One can still visited their graves where they lie in lead coffins as the radiation would be to hard for people walking by otherwise.

Alpaca Dreamin

So I want an alpaca. Thats right. An alpaca. Maybe a llama too just for good measure. You don't have to twist my arm to get me interested in a new pet. Not only are they absolutely adorable and spunky with their punked out haircuts, they are also practical. Yep, a giant fuzzy poop machine is practical. 1. You don't need much land. In fact, you can raise 10 alpacas on one (read that - 1!) acre. 2. Unlike my second favorites - the goats - their little pointy feet don't actually ruin the grass/root system. So my pretty grassy field will actually stay pretty, and grassy. In fact, it may actually become prettier because their "llama beans", so to speak, are coveted for their superior fertilizing properties. 3. I want to hand dye my own yarn. :)

I have been drooling over Purlsoup's yarns for quite some time now. I found her on Ravelry but she also has an etsy shop. Apparently she taught herself how to hand dye yarn and it was quite easy.

Instantly my mind went crazy with swirling colors and YARNS Everywhere! Muhahahahfafafafa!

My favorite one from Purlsoup is called - Rainbow Fish.http://www.flickr.com/photos/purlsoup/sets/72157604186642790/

It looks just like a parrotfish, and from earlier posts, we all know how much I love fishies. So I would dye my home grown alpaca yarn in honor of my betta fishies. I already came up with 3 color schemes. Of course, my brain branched out into all sorts of different combinations too complex to list right now.

But OH! how much fun. In the midst of this, pleasantly, I started to miss my Mom. Yes, I will move back near my parents and my artsy Mom and I will bond over hand dyeing yarn. Forget all my career plans, why I moved 700 miles away to try out a new area, yada yada yada. It all comes down to pets and yarns, my preciouses.....

It doesn't help that the yarn dying companies make it sound sooooooo easy!
It makes me giddy just thinking about it.One of everything, please! :D $$Ching$$

http://www.halcyonyarn.com/dyeing.html

SantoGold

Santogold – You'll Find A Way (Switch & Sinden Remix)

Great day with my sweetie. :) Leave it to Urban Outfitters to swindle me into buying this cd. Its just strange and I love it.

Alien Spawn

In reading through our mail this morning, particularly through all the billion pages of printed SPAM, I found this: http://www.storksnapshots.com/

My first thought was, "Wow, how wonderful for Mom's to be." I know the here and there Dr. sonogram prints have always been very special but how cool to just be able to get them whenever you want. Then, I started looking at the actual pics and I was reminded of my aversion to the whole baby/birthing process. Bleck! The sonograms are high quality but just sort of gross me out. Perhaps I've had one too many trips to the Mutter Museum.(http://www.collphyphil.org/mutter.asp)

I guess it could be nice to see what your bun in the oven looks like in such high detail. "Oh, it has your nose, my mouth, blah blah blah...." but I think it would lessen the suprise when the baby is actually born. Maybe it's just the stillshots that disturb me. If it was moving instead? would that be better??? Ehhh......shrug

The whole thing has always been very parasitic to me. An Alien spawn sucking the life out of you until it outgrows your body. Then it sucks the life and $ out of you for the next 20+ years. Oye!

Finperation and Shrimperation

If you know me, you probably have the impression that I love creatures large and small. Well, this is the tip of the iceburg. No! I'm not some crazy hoarding cat/dog lady with 100 animals in my apartment. What I mean is that I truly love and find harmonious beauty in nature. I have a wee chunk of the Transcendentalism in me. I've started to design patterns and a few quick knits to try out the workings of my imagination. Right now I am focusing on the color combinations found in butterfly wings, in tropical fish and other marine critters. I am increasingly fascinated!


My first set of sketches and pattern doodles in excel (yes - microsoft excel) are based on a cute little shrimpy. I have been known to frequent high quality aquarium stores as a cheap thrill. Basically they are free aquarium visits for me. If you are on the East Coast, I highly recomend the Aquarium Depot in Randallstown, MD.

I have had many fish over the years but have kept to ryukins and bettas. It was on one of these visits that I saw my first camelback shrimp, also called dancing shrimp, hingebeak shrimp.

TaaDaa! (Dancing Shrimp) Sorry, I don't have my own picture of these guys - yet.

I'm also in love with the Mandarin goby/dragonet. I'm sure you have seen one before. They are quite striking - see! :)

And the Biscuit Starfish and Necklace Starfish.

Also, I must confess that I am in love with Sea Slugs (Nudibranch). Yep. I loves them. For knitting purposes I am going to focus on the pretty ones like this one, this one and this one. However, if I ever aspire to own one, I am going with a little brown blob like this one. They look like little cows to me. A little squishy, gooshy, cow (or an icky clump of fat??). I actually saw one in the aquarium store and we had a moment. Sure, they aren't as pretty but I like them all the same. While I am more interested in the color inspirations, I may knit up a little Nudibranch to keep me happy until I get that tank.

Jaeger Roma Yummy!

I've kept at that Crossneck Pullover and with lots of moral support, am sticking with those 18 sts cables. The front and back are finished! Woot!

Now I am 10" into one sleeve and have fallen into pattern loathing again. Those freakin cables are just too bulky with this yarn! The cast on for sleeves was the same for every size so only the increases affect width. I am still following the instructions for a small. Up until now I wish I had knit a medium for the body because I think the torso is going to be snug when I sew the seams. Now, the small sleeves are too big! Just can't win! They feel bigger than what I am used to but the pattern calls for two bulky cables up the arm so it even looks chunky.

Yarg!

What to do.....??? I know, keep knitting! lol. I'm more in this for the therapeutic and theoretical art aspect than for actual clothing anyway. At knitting circle even the sleeves got lots of positive feedback so it must just be ME. I'm going to keep listening to the words of wisdom and keep going. When I was testing out the sleeve on my arm, initially I was holding it with the two cables lying flat and facing upward with my palm facing down. Later I was looking at the picture and the cables are actually going to straddle the outside ridge of my arm. So there will be one cable facing up and one facing down. This looks better but I already have my panties in a bunch over it.

p.s. That funny bit at the bottom of the picture is where I increased the pattern instead of frogging. Originally I had cast on a few sts less than called for with the small size. This made the perfect width until I started the bunchy cables which pulled the sides together. So, yeah, that is NOT part of the pattern. Just my laziness which I will need to fill in/pay for later. ;)

Modifications...Again

I thought/hoped this was going to be a straight forward knit. I haven't had one of those yet and was pretty excited about it. I am refering to pattern #34 from Vogue Knitting Fall 07.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a picture anywhere online to present here so lets just say it has major cabling on the front, back, and a line of cable up the sleeves which cross over at the neck. I'm knitting it with Jaeger Roma which is a bit stretchy and has an every so slightly larger guage. Its pretty beautiful so far but I'm starting to really loathe the 12 sts cable portion (two of them) right in the middle of the front/back. Its just too bulky! Why oh why couldn't this be simple. I am wondering if its because the yarn is stretchy but am more inclined to think its just too large of a cable to sit pretty. Now I have no idea what to do.... :( Any suggestions????

Crafty CheapAss

Yep that's me (no, not the anorexic model in the picture)- a crafty cheapass. I find that if you just invest a little time and energy, when it comes to knitting, you can usually just figure things out for yourself. This includes patterns. I absolutely love Phildar but well, I'm not about to break the bank and shovel out $20 when I really only want one pattern out of one of their books. I've had my eye on their traveling leaves sweater from Tendances 460 (Quietude Pivoine) for a bit. Finally, I found the pattern for the leaves here (http://www.abc-knitting-patterns.com/1006.html) and from looking at pictures of knitted sweaters on Flickr, I basically have the entire pattern. Now, to get this thing going. Pink or metallic grey Jaeger Roma????

Left Leaves Panel: on 22 st.
Row 1, 3 and 5: 10 p, 2 k, 10 p
Row 2 and all even rows knit k over k, p over p and yon (yarn over needle).
Row 7: 9 p, T2B (Twist 2 Back), 1 k, 10 p.
Row 9: 8 p, T2B (Twist 2 Back: slip a stitch on a cable needle and leave it at the back of work, knit next stitch, purl the stitch from the cable needle), 2 k, 10 p.
Row 11: 7 p, T2B, 1 p, 2 k, 10 p. Row 13: 6 p, T2B, 2 p, 2 k, 10 p.
Row 15: 6 p, yon (yarn over needle), 1 k, yon, 3 p, 2 k, 10 p.
Row 17: 6 p, yon, 1 k, yon, 1 k, yon, 1 k, 3 p, 2 k, 10 p.
Row 19: 6 p, 2 k, yon, 1 k, yon, 2 k, 3 p, 1 k, T2F (Twist 2 Front: slip a stitch on a cable needle and leave it at the front of work, purl next stitch, knit the stitch from the cable needle), 9 p.
Row 21: 6 p, 3 k, yon, 1 k, yon, 3 k, 3 p, 2 k, T2F, 8 p.
Row 23: 6 p, k2tog tbk (knit 2 together through back of loops), 5 k, k2tog, 3p, 2 k, 1 p, T2F, 7 p.
Row 25: 6 p, k2tog tbk, 3 k, k2tog, 3 p, 2 k, 2 p, T2F, 6 p.
Row 27: 6 p, k2tog tbk, 1 k, k2tog, 3 p, 2 k, 3 p, yon, 1 k, yon, 6 p.
Row 29: 6 p, k3tog, 3 p, 2 k, 3 p, 1 k, yon, 1 k, yon, 1 k, 6 p.
Row 31: 9 p, T2B, 1 k, 3 p, 2 k, yon, 1 k, yon, 2 k, 6 p.
Row 33: 8 p, T2b, 2 k, 3 p, 3 k, yon, 1 k, yon, 3 k, 6 p.
Row 35: 7 p, T2b, 1 p, 2 k, k2tog tbk, 5 k, k2tog, 6 p.
Row 37: 6 p, T2B, 2 p, 2 k, k2tog tbk, 3 k, k2tog, 6 p.
Row 39: 6 p, yon, 1 k, yon, 3 p, 2 k, 3 p, k2tog tbk, 1 k, k2tog, 6 p.
Row 41: 6 p, 1 k, yon, 1 k, yon, 1 k, 3 p, 2 k, 3 p, k3tog, 6 p.
Row 43: Repeat rows 19 - 42.

Right Leaves Panel: on 22 st. Mirror Left Leaves Panel.

Plants! Plants! La La Plants!

Someday I will have a yard. And believe me, I will be taking FULL advantage of every square inch! Oh the plans I have for the PLANTS I will have!


The Lovely White Egret Flower. This is actually a type of bog orchid. I'm not a huge fan of orchids - they remind me of high maintenance snooty women for some reason, but these are really interesting.


Magnificent Passion Flower.


Himalayan Blue Poppy.


Pink Lilly of the Valley.

Tangled Mess

So my Tangled Yoke Cardigan isn't going very well. I'm bummed and annoyed and just...argrrah!!! I couldn't even talk about it at the last Knit Night. Sure I brought it, but I barely worked on it. What a mess. I would exalborate (I mean elaborate but that sounds like it has more Oomph!) but I don't feel like talking about it right now.

Instead, I've been playing around with the St. Brigid pattern. I have a bunch of acrylic yarn sitting around and don't really know what to do with it. Yes, acrylic isn't really on the A list of yarns but it was cheap. Supercheap. And I don't really know what I'm doing yet...so, eh. Yarn is yarn right now.
So yes...St. Brigid. I might make a shrug with it. An entire sweater would be too exhausing right now (plus all the alterations to make it fitted).

Boom Chikka Wah Wah

My hunny is stringing up his guitar! Finally! Ooooh la la sexy. And is this because I told him I would drool over him constantly? That serenading me would be the sexiest thing ever? No! Cuz you better believe I told him that like a YEAR ago. His new found interest to play his not one but two! lovely guitars is because of Alzheimer's. Yes....Alzheimer's. Apparently playing a musical instrument is one way to keep your neurons happy and in sync - thus warding off Alzheimer's. Fantastic! Being proactive is important and admirable. I want my sweetie around for as long as possible - all of him. It all started when we took a little trip to the library today. I simply HAD TO HAVE the knitting pattern for St. Brigid! The actual book "Aran Knitting" by Alice Starmore is out of print and something like $150-$230 to acquire. Hooray for libraries!!! For about $0.40 I now have the complete pattern, instructions and general design information for aran sweaters. Ha! But while I was running around like a kid in a candy store, my guy was reading the current Men's health mag. It would have been nice to be his muse but the end result is the same...I guess...

P.S. I know copywriting is an important topic in the knitting community. However, this book is out of print. $ spent buying it will just go to the book owner, not the artist. I will probably blog more about this later when I've had more time to read and mull things over.

Determination

Exactly! Thank you NU-POC for understanding.

So yes, I would like to use my ENTIRE brain - at ALL times. That is why I have set my sights on Prosthetics/Orthotics. Artistic technologically amazing devices that actually improve the world and people's lives. SATISFACTION at last! I'm in a bit of a rut at present. Apparently I need to be certified via an Associates Degree to do ANYTHING!!! Yes, I have a Biomedical degree but somehow a 2 year degree would be more useful for the positions I'm looking at. Its frustrating but I shall not be deterred. Heck no! I have too many goals! Too many aspirations! Muhuhahahahahahahaha! And these would be the following (in this order via necessity).

1. Become a Prosthetist's/Orthotist's Technician and assist in the fabrication of current prosthetics and orthotics.

2. Get my Prosthetist Certification and/or my Biomedical Master's degree. Preferably at Northwester University because they are da bomb-diggity (i.e. the best).

3. Get my foot in the door at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. Research/Prosthetist/Orthotist - anything! I want to be involved.

4. Become a prosthetic designer and come up with ingenious, creative, simple, functional, affordable and amazing prosthetics.

5. Do pro-bono work, design affordable medical devices and prosthetics for low-income individuals and countries. Use my spare time traveling the world with do-gooder companies to make change for the better using my skills.

6. Start my own little business on the side to design prosthetics/orthotics for animals. Again-emphasis on the affordable aspect.

So whats stopping me? To get into a Prosthetist certificate program I need 2 letters of recomendation from health professionals (physical therapist, prosthetist, orthotist, etc.).

I don't know any.

To work for a health professional and gain valuable experience and hopefully (if they like my awesome work) get recomendation letters, I first need to be a certified physical therapy assistant or prosthetic technician.

To become certified it will take $ and at least 12 months of basic training.

With all my skills, knowledge, good intentions and education...this setback feels debilitating.

And thats my rant. Chin up....Chin up!

Lovely Lichen

I was browsing some knitting blogs and randomly found someone who makes terrariums. I've always been fond of a nicely arranged terrarium but hers had some unique items. By far the best addition was some trumpet lichen. I never heard of such a thing. They are so cute!

Achingly Beautiful

It's about time I actually wrote about some knitting business. Right now I am finishing up a teal-blue Tangled Yoke Cardigan. It required a bit of adjusting at the very end but I'm quite pleased with the results so far. Like any hobby, restraint is a must. Buying yarn can deplete the $$$ pretty quickly and really just builds up my stash until it overflows - everywhere. So far I've rationalized that I can't move on to another project until I finish the one I'm working on. It sucks, its no fun and its frustrating. However, I'm sticking to it. But, for being so behaved, I am allowed to look at new projects. Tee-hee!
When I look at some of this stuff (like this magnificent cable) its so exciting I almost feel dirty just looking at it. How beautiful! And I can make it. It can be mine! It calls to me... my preciousess...... The sense of accomplishment when you make something by hand is amazing. Whether it be a sweater, a garden, furniture or a car (shout out to my sweetie!) - it's so completely satisfying. And healthy! Everyone should have some kind of handy hobby.

So Bad Its Good

But wait! There's more!

Have you heard? Well, of course you have.

How about that Nick Sitko huh?

If you haven't heard about it (because I didn't until AP showed it to me) - it all started on a popular website - nsxprime.com

One of its many threads received numerous postings by yet another obnoxious spammer. No big deal right? Just sort of annoying?

Here is the rundown.

Spammer N/Nick tries to peddle his website by bragging he’s made a bunch of money and bought a fancy car NSX for $63k in cash. – Spammer gets exposed as owner of said website and his name is Nick Sitko.

N/NICK denies identity and address.

N/NICK continues to post spam and gets into all kinds of arguments with everyone. Everyone gets pissed off and start a mission to expose him. So he gets exposed for lying about paying in cash AND!! one Mr. Nick Sitko is found on South Carolina Sex Offenders website.

N/NICK attempts damage control still denies identity and address and the fact that he’s a pedo. He’s still claiming that he bought the NSX with $63K in a suitcase full of 20s.

Nick Sitko myspage page is found. His picture matches the sex offender websites and his myspace is peddling the same gambling sites, proving conclusively what we knew all along that Nick Sitko the spammer/gambler and Nick Sitko the pedo is one and the same.

Blah blah blah...big huge posting war back and forth. Everyone is annoyed at him, everyone complains to everyone else about him.

Things spiral way out of control until nsxprime.com is so overwhelmed by visitors that it actually CRASHES the site. And now, doing a search for this guy's name instantly brings up his colorful history. Now thats a great way to become famous.

What an idiot. And yes, this was just an excuse to post a cute/sad donkey picture.