Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Too hot for the hot tub...

Or to do anything else but sit around in my air-conditioned room and knit while my dog snores at me from beneath the blankets. How anything covered with fur could possibly want to snuggle under the blankets on my bed in this heat is beyond me, but Beeba seems to like it. No wonder why she always feels like she's a million degrees. And another thing...she smells like corn chips when she sleeps. Big time. Ew. I think I need to give her a bath. Oh well...

So this past weekend, I was busy. Very, very busy. I worked a sixteen hour shift on Friday, went home and stayed up until noon so I could get started on a baby shower I was informed I was in charge of throwing (along with my loverly wife of course!) a week before the actual date of the shower mind you. After sleeping a few hours, I went back to work for another twelve hours and then came home and stayed up until five to both set up the shower and actually enjoy the shower.

I'm telling you, as far as baby showers go, I throw a mean one. There was plenty of food, plenty of beer (none for the preggo though, sorry Pam! I'll buy you one when you squirt the kid out!), and well, plenty of laughs. We played some hilarious games, the happy couple got tons of handy-dandy baby presents (and a super-cool baby survival kit from me and DW - best present EVER), and got to cool off in a just-opened,crystal clear (well, would have been if the kids had stopped putting their super dirty feet in it)swimming pool. The weather was almost perfect too, just extremely hot. I probably lost about five pounds just sitting still outside, which really isn't all that bad a thing. Anyway, here's a few pics!

Babycakes
The cake - made by my talented SIL Allison a.k.a FussyGusset! She used a spatula to frost it with and then basically finger painted the rest because she had no tips or proper decorating equipment. Good job Allison! And it tasted good too! :)

Pressies Showah

Baby Gifts
Doesn't Pam look so serene?

FEET showaj
Me, Pam and Allison. All wearing the same shoes. That were all bought at the same time at a Wal-Mart in Maryland while we were at the festival. We're dorks, but our feet never ache when we wear 'em! :)

The Money Shot
This is why I hate putting anything together last minute. Something awful inevitably occurs, and this time it involved me getting temporarily blinded in one eye by Hellman's Mayo. Gross.

Despite the mishap though, the shower, I believe, was a success. And there were some left over favors too, which means that all I have to do is rip one open to get to the chocolatey goodness inside. Bonus! After the shower was over, I conked out until 10 p.m for some much needed shut-eye before heading off to work for the night. That's right! I'm officially back on 11-7, which I love! Yee-ah!Especially since that means I get paid mo' money to do less work! Boo-ya, now that's what I'm talkin' about! And I get to knit too! Which is why I've actually finally managed to get somewhere on my Clapotis. Here are some pics of it so far.

Clap 1

Clap 2

The colors show up a bit better in the second pic...but either way I know the pictures are crappy. I'll be better and take some new ones in the daylight this weekend. Until then, these'll have to do. I used Socks That Rock - Mediumweight for this pattern and find that Pam's right, this yarn does have a really nice drape to it, and the colors! Oh my gawd the colors! I chose Dutch Canyon for the fact that there seems to be about five or six different colors in this colorway, which means minimal pooling, which makes me happy. And so far, I'm not disappointed!

And who are those cute little critters helping me hold my Clap in place? Why, they're my Sock Monstahs, of course!

Twinkles

I first heard of Sock Monstahs through Pam's blog,and after procrastinating for a couple of weeks,I finally got around to checking out the etsy site and wound up buying one of the monstahs. Actually, the one I've pictured above. His name is Twinkles the Executioner, and I just think he's super adorable - and he only cost 13 bucks with Free shipping. And naturally, I can't just buy one of anything (except maybe sock yarn because you can pretty much knit a pair of socks out of one skein if you choose the right pattern), so I custom ordered a pair of Zombie Sock Monstahs from her as well!

Murl and Zeek


Meet Zeek (right)and Murl (left), the first ever Zombie Monstahs in creation...and they're all mine! Aren't they great? Apparently, they also like yarn. See?

Yarn Stealing Monstahs

I caught them in the act of trying to unravel my clap or just plain unravel the ball of yarn I'm knitting with. I haven't decided which yet, but either way, I love them. And for 30 dollars for the pair...well, it's a deal that you can't just pass up. It helps to know that all the money that I've spent (and will be spending) on Ms. Jacky's monstahs is going to the American Cancer Society makes me feel all good inside too! See, I'm a lousy charity knitter. I join all these charity groups, make a couple of things and then just never get around to actually mailing them until maybe a month or two after they were supposed to be there. But this makes donating easy! Here's another pic of all three of my monstahs, just sitting around, minding their own P's and Q's. :)
Sock Monstah Trio

And here's the little note Wacky Jacky sent me right along with my custom order, along with a cute little comic on the side of the box she mailed them in!
Moi EnvelopeI rock monstah
Sock Monstah box Showah

Well, Ms. Wacky Jacky...you say I rock, but I say it's YOU who rocks. Totally. Thanks so much for providing me with a new addiction that's now right up there with yarn. Trust me, I love you for it!

Aaaah...other than knitting my clap and buying monstahs, the only other things I've done is knit a couple of pairs of pasties for a swap I did with the Bad Knit Girls via Ravelry , and go a little old school to make one of those embroidery floss friendship bracelets for an LSG swap. I neglected to actually take a picture of the bracelet...but I managed to take pics of the pasties, so here they are...for your enjoyment!

Pasties! 006
Pasties! 001

I used the pattern from the Naughty Needles book, and added the little extras on my own. The top pair I used some of KP Andean treasure along with some Berocco Zap (just in the initial cast on, then I just knit with the treasure) and finished them off with a cute little silver star and moon charm. The bottom pair I used some STR and finished them off with bits of chain and beads and feather. Really cute. And what's best is my swap partner Amy looks hot in them! :)

Now, as much as I hate to cut this blog short I am just sitting here at the computer and the sweat is pouring down my face. It's icky, and I need a shower, so yeah, peace out!