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.