I've been so very, very bad...

First off, let me start off by saying this: I suck, and I know it. I have been neglecting blogland for a while, but because I suddenly find myself with a refreshing amount of free time on my hands, I have decided to return to the land of the internet-living. I haven't been knitting as much as I'd like to, and that's truly sad, sad, sad. But, thanks to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, I've found new inspiration and happily, the need to knit is back in place. Thank the Goddess!

Let me start by re-capping my weekend in Maryland. Friday, me and the in-laws (MIL,and two SILs) woke up early and headed off for our long drive. We were armed with coffee, knitting projects and plenty of cash to spend on Saturday. Ten hours later, we arrived at the Comfort INN, in Catonsville, MD. Next year, we're planning on staying somewhere else, but as far as hotels went, it wasn't so bad. The rates were good, which was a bonus, but on the negative side we had to deal with being surrounded by a high school basketball team the whole weekend we stayed. And they were loud, and kept knocking on our door all fucking night. Probably, they figured that they were banging on one of their teammates' doors,but in reality, they weren't. They were lucky that we were too tired to chase them off with pointy sticks. Instead, we unpacked, went to Wal-Mart in search of sandals, and then crashed after eating dinner at a local fast-food joint called Chick-Fil-A. It was okay. If you like fast food crap, which I'm getting kind of sick of.

Saturday: We started off the day bright and early by getting to the festival at 7:30 a.m., where we were instantly greeted to a few smiling early birds camped out up front (complete with chairs and knitting in laps), and the cheerful cry of "Is that Lickmysticks?" by none other than the wonderful LanieRed!


Not only a fellow Ravelry member, but a fellow LSG bitch as well! Yay, what a great way to start our day. She drove all the way from Biloxi, by her lonesome, to head up to the festival, and we marvelled at her true-blue knitterly status for a moment before heading right over to the Fold where we could make sure to score enough STR to tide us over till Rhinebeck. I myself only bought four skeins, but kept running back in after I'd paid to fetch skeins for my SIL and another fellow raveler KnittingKris, who had also arrived with some other ravelers and friends. Let me tell you, there were a lot of us there! Once we were done there, we hit the food stands, where I had a healthy breakfast of a fatty, fried, HUGE corn dog with mustard and then prepared to hit up some of the other booths where I bought a braid of BFL from the Flying Fibers stall.

Now I had originally told myself that I wouldn't buy any roving as I hadn't even spun up the stuff I bought at Rhinebeck, but that was most likely a bold-faced lie as I couldn't resist the soft loveliness of that bfl, and on top of that, it was in pretty sky-like blues so I had to have it. Gorgeous! So, yada, yada I bought more yarn and then, at around 12:45-ish we arrived at the Rabbit building for the Ravelry meetup, where were greeted by this...


What a huge friggin' crowd! And better yet, while hanging around waiting for Jess, Casey and Mary-Heather to arrive, we managed to meet a few more LSG girls and ravelers!


cicadaqueen


silkworm


Dulcedosa


Yarnedy

You girls rocked! Thanks so much for helping us pass the time with chatter while we waited for the rock stars of the internet knitting world to appear.Also, earlier in the day I met Michelle from Sweet Sheep while I was buying a more than generous skein of her hand-dyed fingering weight yarn in "Fields Forever" (gorgeous pink/green colorway).
She also rocked. In fact, I can't wait to buy more of her yarn. Thanks Michelle, for giving me yet another yarn to be addicted to! :)

Once the heads of Ravelry arrived, buttons, and avatar stickers were passed out, and pictures galore were taken with our three hosts. So many, that none of my group wanted to bother them for a picture just yet, but Mary Heather came our way, and to prove she's not a narc, snapped a picture with my SIL, the infamous LickMySticks - LSG loudmouth extraordinaire! Good times were had, and then we headed back out to catch some more shopping before heading back to our hotel to take a yarn nap.
A hobby Pam apparently took far too seriously. Still, it must have been nice to lay in all that skwooshy yarn, and I'm jealous that I didn't get to stage dive into it too. Either way, yes, that pile of yarn she's laying in is the amount of yarn four women are capable of buying in a five hour time span when budget constraints are abnormally large. Want a better look? Sure!


That's a whole lotta yarn. I'm sure plenty of people bought more than that themselves, but still...that's a lotta fuckin' yarn! And what, out of all this swag is actually mine? Allow me.



Total purchases for me = 4 skeins of Socks That Rock - Mediumweight (two in Dutch Canyon, one in Sherbet, and one in Knitty Rocks)

2 skeins of Acero from Brooks Farm

2(4?...they're each two skeins but were sold in pairs for a sock amount) skeins of Made by Ewe Sock Yarn.

1 skein of "Out of the Dyepot" yarn...I don't remember the actual name of the booth though.

1 neat-o expandable shopping bag kit from The Spinnery

1 HUGE skein (745 yds) of Sweet Sheep Fingering in "Fields Forever"

1 4 oz Braid of super-soft BFL roving from Flying Fibers

Not bad eh?



Please, don't mind the scary red-eye in the picture and just look at all the lovely stuff I'm holding. It looks like a lot more than I listed when in my short, stubby arms, but I assure you, it's everything!

So, after we played with our new yarn and napped a bit (erm, a bit longer than intended that is), we rushed out the door (after prettying up again)to head to the Ravelry after party, where we got boozed up and had plenty of laughs with silkworm and a newfound friend, ChezAristote (who won a door prize and gloats about it very demurely) while Pam pouted a bottle of beer that she could not drink.

The whole night was quite, quite spiffy, and we even managed to score some photographic proof that the heads of Ravelry DON'T hate LSG. Note: Casey looks a little terrified, but at least this further proves that MH is not a narc and that Jess likes us too. After this picture was taken, we headed back to our hotel only to have those asshole basket ball players keep on knocking on our door, jiggling door handles and basically just being annoying, teenage kids. Ugh. No sleep for me. But at least I woke up plenty early in the morning so I could pack it up and shove it back in the car before heading back to the Festival for a quick peek around to make sure we didn't miss anything. All I wound up buying was a fabulous, hand-made wooden drop spindle made by Bill Hardy! So far, I love it. It's weighted nicely, spins like a dream and really is lovely to look at. I still might check out a Kundert though, as they came highly recommended! ;)

Anyway, we left the festival at 11 a.m. on Sunday, and eight hours later I wound up back in good old New Beige. Note the sarcasm. Anyhoo, (If you are KaRi a.k.a Coggie TM then read no further until you get your package!!!***) later on in the week, I got kind of hungry so I helped myself to a nice, big piece of Blueberry Pie!

Isn't it cute? It's the first piece of knitted anything that I've ever made that required stuffing, and I think I did a pretty good job of it. I used Caron Simply Soft for the filling (I think it was Country Blue or something like that) and then I just used some Red Heart Supersaver for the crust. The pattern was super-easy to crank out (once I looked at it with tired eyes) and was knit up for a swap that took place in the Kitchen Item Exchange group via Ravelry. I made a couple of extra things to go along with it, just because I tend to be a bit of a spoiler when it comes to swaps.




Besides the blueberry pie pincushion, cupcake cloth and kitty/butterfly stitchmarkers, I also included a set of ten bamboo blocking pins and a tiny little bamboo crochet hook, useful for picking up stitches. I hope KaRi likes it! The cloth was the result of me just messing around, and it's way larger than a normal dishcloth , so maybe it's more of a mini-towel or something. At any rate, I especially like the cupcake portion as I pretty much just kind of designed it off the seat of my pants. I didn't write down anything that I did, but when I try to replicate it again, I'll write it down and maybe I'll have a pattern up for it soon!

Once I finished that swap package up, I cast on for me later-than-late to the party Clapotis - after all, it's what I bought those two skeins of Dutch Canyon STR for ;) (totally biting your idea Pam...and doing it unashamedly as well : P). I originally wasn't going to knit it, because honestly, I'm not one to knit something just because everyone else in the knitting world was. Not to mention the fact that I didn't think it was all that pretty. I guess you could say that looking at everyone else's work on the pattern finally made me want one of my own. I'll be posting pictures as soon as I get past the damn increase rows. Those things take forever.

Also, I finally have a picture of my previously mentioned Entrelac Tote to show off as well. It's still not finished as I had stopped knitting on it due to being disheartened by the fact that my LYS didn't have another skein of one of the colors I needed to make it look pretty (I bit the bullet and bought it off eBay...luckily for like two bucks cheaper because it was an auction). So far, so good, though, don't you think? Made with Berroco Peruvia It's huge though, which is good because once it's finished it will be summarily felted, and then shaved with disposable razors to remove fuzziness,and then will have leather handles added to it so I can hopefully wear it around Rhinebeck right along with my Clap and hopefully my Luna Moth shawl (I plan on making it out of that gorgeous Sweet Sheep stuff I just bought)...if I can actually manage to cast on for it. Right now I'm supposed to be knitting my Slow Bee, but the lace that I have for it is packed away so it'll have to wait I guess. At least until I can get off my lazy ass and poke around the box my yarn's been shoved into. Either way, I plan on keeping myself busy knitting over the next few months, as , sadly, my hobby has been quite neglected. Not to mention the fact that I've joined a couple of other swaps and have plans for a Dexter Swap 2 in the making (The first one can be found here.)

On the homefront, life is going well for me. My wife might be getting a new job as a Corrections Officer with our local Sherrif Department, which means that she'll be making TWICE as much as she currently makes as a CNA (yay! That means that I might actually be able to be a housewife soon!). Beeba is still the cutest doggie in the whole world, though I still need to knit her a sweater. I just can't find the right pattern. I think I might have to try at designing again for her itty bitty skinny body. And well, everything's going good! It's cold as hell here right now though, so I'm gonna head off upstairs to get cozy with my knitting for a couple of hours before I have to sleep. Goodnight all and happy knitting!

No-knits!

I know! I mean, don't get me wrong, I have been knitting...I just haven't bothered to take any pictures yet, and well, I don't like to talk about my knitting unless I have some pics to back up all my fibertalk...so, suckage on that. However, I did feel the need to come on here and announce that I now have a new family member to knit for! :)

Meet Beeba:


Yes, that's right, her name is Beeba. She's five years old, and weighs just under five pounds and she's just about the cutest little snuggle bug ever! Me and the DW adopted her from a family that just felt they couldn't pay her the amount of attention she deserved any more, and let me just say that she's just about the most beautiful gift I could ever recieve. Although, getting her to sit still for a decent picture is nearly impossible...I managed a couple of them.







I was told that Beeba was named by her former owner's then two year old son, and we decided that the name suited her so we kept it. She's a minpin/chihuahua(EDIT: Actually, I don't think she's minpin...I'm pretty sure she's mini doxie/chihuahua...yeah, definitely.) crossbreed, and as a result of that mix is always, always cold and shivering so I really need to either find or come up with a couple of doggie sweater patterns that can accomodate a dog that's on the extra small side of small. Also, as I found out yesterday, she's a burrower and is perfectly content to snuggle way down underneath the blankets and curl up by my or my wife's legs. She's adorable, and we love her, and even when she's stepping in circles around our faces to wake us up so she can have food we just can't get aggravated with her. It's kind of a pain in the ass actually, because I'm sure she knows we're suckers. All she has to do is stick her ears straight up and sit there all prim and proper like and we're just like "Awwww..." It's sickening.

Anyway, that's all she wrote for now. Knitting pictures coming soon. I promise!

Happy Easter!

If you celebrate that kind of thing...

The swing of things...

Holy shit, have I been gone forever or what? The truth is, and honestly I ain't lyin, I have been suffering from what I like to call Post-Christmas-Knitting-Avoidance. Let me just say that my attempts at knitting for people for Christmas were failures. Apparently there is not enough time in an entire year to knit something for each person on a gift list of approximately 45...or at least there isn't when you'd much rather knit things for yourself, for various KAL's and well, basically avoid the Xmas knitting scene period. Call it selfishness, or call it laziness. Either one applies. And actually, I had all the signs of a knitter on the brink of temporary destruction. Strands of multi-colored wool stuck in my hair, all over my clothes like mock-cat hairs, tips of bamboo knitting needles dyed an abominable shade of purple from knitting too much Moonlight Mohair on them, and not to mention the tell-tale crampiness in my finger joints. But no, I was determined to at least TRY and knit for one or two people in my family,and those people were supposed to be my SIL Pam and my little Godson(for want of a better word because I'm pagan and his parents are NOT Catholic) Jeffrey, but wound up being my Mummy's fiancee' Michael (he got a basic 3x3 rib scarf made out of Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande because I'd knit that up like last year and no one had ever worn it) and Jeffrey instead.



And doesn't he look so cute in his slightly too-big, unblocked sweater? I think so. His family loved it! But that's not the point. I was successful in the creation of his sweater simply because I actually WANTED to knit it. I wanted to knit Pam's bag too, but well I think the problem was, I took on a project that was a bit beyond my capabilities as a knitter so I could try to impress the super-knitty and crafty Pam. Big no-no there, et me tell you. I should have stuck with what I knew, but ooooh no. I just thought, "Well, how the hell hard could it be to do this? Pattern shmattern, I'll design her the perfect bag all by myself and it'll be cake!" Ha! Bullshit! I should have looked harder for a pattern and stuck to that one. Oh, don't get me wrong. I consider myself a decently skilled crafter when it comes to the needle, but one should never, ever attempt Intarsia in the round when you've never even really done Intarsia before. I had fooled myself into thinking that I could handle it, however, by knitting this nifty skully dishcloth.



See? Not bad, right? I didn't think so. And it was marvelously easy too. The problem? Well, for this particular cloth I had a pattern to follow, and a chart that I didn't have to make myself...and furthermore, it WAS NOT IN THE ROUND. It was flat. I should have stuck to my original plan and made the bag that I was intending to be for Pam kinda boxy. It would have been easier because then I could have knit it flat and then seamed it (even though I hate seaming). Instead, I get the idea in my head that she needs a bucket bag, because well, she just does. So, I make the chart for the image I want to knit into the bag (A Heartagram...which is appropriate, yes indeed), and then come up with this hairbrained pattern for making the bag (which if I ever re-make it, and I think I will, I will so totally do it a different way) from the top down in one tube and then pick up stitches from the bottom edge and decrease accordingly so the bag can have a roundesque bottom. And I don't care if "roundesque" is not a word...it is my word, and therefore it is a word and that's that. :) I'm being belligerent here. Humor me.

Anyway, so I knit it up, and it looks like it'll be fabulous once it's felted. So what if the red on the bottom is a bit...uhm...skimpy. So what if the heartagram is a bit...ermm...elongated across the middle. It'll look fine. So I felt it. Once, twice. I mean, this sucker was huge so it really needed it. And when I take it out of the machine I hold it up and peer at it in the dim light of my basement and it looks...fine. I was surprised, and pleased. Sounds good so far right? Yeah, but then everything went so wrong! I take it upstairs, where the light is unfortunately much better, and notice something odd. Holes. Holes? Why the hell are there holes in it? Turns out my joins are shit and I don't have enough yarn leftover to kind of gui
nea-rig it so those damned things can be felted together, so now I'm stuck with a sopping wet, holey bag that looks like it could have been really cute if I just felted it once more. Here are the pictures of my failure. Go ahead. You can laugh. I did...after I finished crying and screaming and tossing various projects angrily against the walls of my bedroom.





Doesn't it make you maybe want to hang your head in shame? I was so disappointed because I really had thought that I could do this. In hindsight, I'm pretty sure I can figure out what I did wrong and re-knit it, but that isn't going to happen for a good long while. I'm also not really happy with the way the heartagram came out. The sides were too thick, and it was too, I dunno, stretched out. I was hoping it would be a bit more round. I guess I'll just have to tweak it. But anyway, that bag was my reason for taking a temporary break from knitting. And my excuse for a few weeks of beer festivals at a local karaoke bar.



Mmm...Sammy Adams Winter Lager. He became one of my dear friends, but was also responsible for several embarassing karaoke renditions of 80's and early 90's pop songs. For some reason, alcohol makes you do genuinely stupid things, and I think that the stupidest I've ever done is getting up and singing "I like Big Butts" in front of a room full of strangers (okay and some of my friends were there too) and then proceeding to shake my money-maker like it was nobody's business to demonstrate that I had to like big butts...I have one! Not cool. But at least the beer was good. And the glass was never empty either, thanks to a certain person (mm-hmm...and you know who you are too John).

My wife also enjoyed several pitcherfulls of the stuff. Here she is, chugging back a cold one for the camera.



Ain't she special? :) You should see her after she's had a few Jaegerbomb chasers.

Anyhow,I'm glad to say that I'm back in the land of fibercrafting after several rough weeks of drinking,working, and drinking. Granted, I haven't been cranking out the FO's exactly, but I've gotten a few nifty things done.

Meet Swatchy!


This swatch is for my Secret of the Stole II. Of course, that's about as far as I've gotten on the thing as of right now, but still it's a damned good swatch, isn't it? My first attempt at knitting actual lace, and I think it's a-okay! Plus, Swatchy here went a long way to re-affirming my need to knit and even my talent as one. I can, in fact, read charts, and the Great Bag Flunkeroo was in no way my fault. It was an awkward, but inspired first shot at designing, but that's no reason to stop knitting for a long time. I do intend on knitting the stole, but I've yet to decide whether I want to fiddle around with it by adding beads, or if I just want to leave it plain. And while I've been pondering that, I've knit a couple of chemo caps. And that last picture was probably supposed to be revenge for me making the wifey model it for me. Bet she didn't expect me to post it here...Hehehe. I love you too baby. ;)











I also bought MORE laceweight yarn from handpaintedyarn.com even though I have no idea what the hell I'm going to do with it now that I've decided not to do Dem Fischer Sin Fru. It was just so pretty,I couldn't say no. See?



And I've been systematically working on an entrelac (my first time ever doing entrelac - yay!) tote, which I have no pictures of as of yet. But besides from doing a decent amount of knitting, and a lot of stash enhancement, I've also been doing a helluva lot of frogging. I had started a pair of Jaywalkers, a Branching Out, an Anniversary Sock (almost had that one finished too), and had been attempting to design a sock. All of 'em were ripped out three weeks ago and have since been reverted to their former skein state. I haven't a clue what I'm going to do with the yarns as of yet, but I'm sure they'll all soon find a home in a brand-new project. I'll probably re-start the Jaywalkers, but on a size bigger needle so it will fit over my big fat calf.

Agh! Anyway, it's getting late and I must dash for now. I will be back later on in the week with an update, and hopefully a few more pictures!

To all my fellow knittahs!!!

Hope your day is fiber-filled (and not in the dietary sense), and full of all sorts of warm'n woolly love!!!!

More coming soon...

Argh, I know that I haven't posted in a long, regrettably long, while! I promise I will be posting a big, long, HUGE post by the end of the week, but I just wanted to pop in and say a big THANK YOU to Mamateja for sending me a beautiful Caffeine Addicts Swap Package. It included such goodies as a pound of organic, fair trade coffee beans, a cute seasonal (and festive!!!) mug, chocolate covered espresso beans, a fun pack of playing cards, two sets of gorgeous hand-made stitch markers (each with row markers included as well!), and some Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn. I have not taken any pictures yet, but rest assured that I shall and they shall be included in my next post. I can see why so many people enjoy participating in swaps and how they can become so addictive!!!

Oh...The Things We Do

Has boredom ever made you do some seemingly inane things? Okay, so I wasn't EXACTLY bored because I was, after all, knitting, but being that I'm one of those strange people that really doesn't like complete quiet I had the TV on for background noise. So, it's late night, which means that basically I'm stuck with re-runs of TV shows that either aired earlier in the day/night, earlier in the week/month, or are pretty much all through and didn't do too well the FIRST time it ran. Well, I did manage to watch the CSI/Without a Trace crossover...which was really frickin' good and NOT a re-run, so the TV wasn't a complete waste, but still. I cast on and began to knit a ballband dishcloth(from Mason Dixon Knitting of course!) through that, and then through some re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond(which really isn't a bad show at all), and then through the Simpsons(love them), and THEN through other shows (Something with George Lopez in it, and before that some other shows that didn't stand out enough to recall), et al when suddenly the mildly entertaining shows switch over to completely stupid. That's right. On comes BLIND DATE, and boy did they start this one off with a bang. They bring out this couple "Mike" and "Tess".

Tess is some kind of supposedly "normal" girl, that still manages to dress completely slutty and give off the bad-girl impression while still being wound tighter than a cat's ass, and Mike...well, Mike is "special". And not in a good way. His little intro about himself is basically all about how he wants sex, sex, and more sex. And according to him, any way he can get it is good with him. He'll beg for it, and probably even pay for it, making himself sound like a complete and total sex-obsessed loser (Okay, so if you're on the show Blind Date, you probably already ARE a loser, right?), as most men are so he should fit right in. Right? Wrong. He then goes on to say that he is "so wild, he thought he was insane" and sought out psychiatric help. Good on you buddy. And while you're at it, here's the door.

He opens the date up by presenting Tess with some silk flowers. Yep. Silk. Flowers. Not even real ones. Fake ones. And, to make it worse, he stole them from somebody's grave. Yep. I didn't believe it, but then they showed a clip on the show of him earlier that day, taking the flowers from the grave. Oh, dear god, kill me now. It was horrible. I had to shut it off before I stabbed my strongest metal knitting needles into the TV and risked getting myself electrocuted. Tell me, please tell me, that this show is in fact scripted and that none of the above REALLY happened. Tell me, that there are no men out there that would take SILK FLOWERS from somebody's fraggin' GRAVE and then give them to a date with some bullshit reasoning.

Tess: "These came from a GRAVE! They're cursed!"

Mike: "No they're not, they're blessed. Want me to tell you how?"

Tess: "Oh. Suuure."

Mike: "You've gotta figure that the person who put those flowers on that grave really loved the guy, right?

Tess: ~ blank, disbelieving stare~

Mike: "Well, I took them because I wanted to transfer some of that love over to you."

Tess: ~blink, blink...thinking quite obviously that this guy is a fucking nightmare~

Well, I'm with you Tess. Let me tell you something Mike, if you have so much damned respect for the people that left those flowers there then you WOULD HAVE JUST LEFT THEM THERE AND SPRUNG FOR SOME REAL FLOWERS FROM A FLORIST YOU WANNA BE GRAVE DIGGING ASSHAT! Your mother should have taken prophylactics before she fucked the guy that helped spawn you, creep. Whew. God. So glad I'm a lesbian right now and that my wife would never, ever do that. Not even in a million years.

There, I feel better. Now...let's get on to happier subjects. I've been knitting like a mo-fo for the past two weeks, and even though I still feel like I'm getting nowhere with knitting Xmas gifts, I at least have made some progress with Jeffrey's sweater. I just need to knit the sleeves, but I'm procrastinating because apparently I'm addicted to knitting dishcloths. They're so quick, and simple and just play USEFUL that they're just great! I joined two KAL's revolving around dishcloths (Monthly Dishcloth KAL) and Dishcloth Weekly KAL. They're great, because they're two KAL's that provide short knit-along projects, and they're low-pressure. If you want to knit one of the cloths one week, do it, if you don't, then don't. It's all okay. And the yarn's really cheap if you just use Peaches 'n Cream or Sugar 'n Cream. Of course, it's all Ravelry's fault! ;) As soon as I see a dishcloth KAL group, I join it. I don't know why. I just can't seem to resist. I. Must. Try. To. Resist and damn well finish my Xmas knitting first! Hrmm...maybe I'll give away a couple of dishcloths with some home made soap...

Mmmmanyway, progress is progress, right? At least I managed to get some of the rest of the sweater done. See?



It looks pretty cute, but it is HUGE on Jeffrey (or maybe he's just a really tiny two-year old, I don't know), but he is simply the cutest kid. Really, really is.



See? Adorable! He definitely gets all his charm from his mother, but he totally has his father's craziness.



That's Mike for ya. Don't ever give a gummy eye to a crazy person because this is what they come up with. ;) Great guy. Very nice and just silly enough so he fits in quite nicely when he's around me and the DW. So, a lot of my knitting is done in his house too. Him and DW sit on the counch and play Resident Evil and me and his DW are forced to find other forms of entertainment, so I knit and semi-watch and poor Kirsten falls asleep because she gets up super early in the a.m. with little Jeffrey, who has to have the most energy a two year old has ever had. Seriously. Kooky little kid.

Speaking of kids, you'd think that my DW was one with the way she acted this past Halloween. We both got dressed up, but I just went as a semi-dirty gypsy while she went as a convicted murder after they remove him/her from the electric chair. I know. she's a sicko, but I love her. :)




I'm just a sweet little gypsy, and there I am with this crazy, burnt to hell mo-fo draped all over me. Hehehe. And yes, that's a vegetable steamer on her head, but
it did manage to look like the little helmet they put over your head while you're waiting to be sizzled. All in all, it was a good time. We really only went out and trick-or-treated with Mike and his family,ex GF and his older kids and such. It was a huge group, and it was fun. Plus, I managed to score lots of free candy because Steph took a bag and went around with the older kids to all the side streets AND the main strip of houses that we were hitting up.


Oh yeah, I've been eating that for breakfast for a loooong time, especially since there are TONS of peanut M&Ms in that pile. I love peanut M&Ms. So I pretend I'm on a sugar-only diet...until I feel guilty enough that I have to fix myself a salad to go along with that helping of TWIX. Not a bad combo really, if you don't think about it too much.

In any case, more knitting. In the spirit of Halloween I started to work on Marley's Ghost, but have neglected to pick it up since I first began knitting it simply because I've been crazy over dishcloths. But, here's what I have so far.


I like the pattern, but I'm just in this phase where I want instant gratification.
For instance, this dishcloth was quick. Really quick. It was my first KAL for the Month Dishcloth, and though I originally screwed it up (the squirrel had three extra arms and a weird spot on its tail) and had to frog the whole thing, I re-knit it in a matter of four hours! But, I don't have a pic of the completely finished project, so you'll have to deal with what I do have.



Now if I can only find an acorn patterned cloth, that dishcloth Squirrel would have something to damn well eat! And while I was both re-knitting that dishcloth and playing around on Ravelry, here's what my wife was doing!



Baking cookies from scratch!!!!! See, I cook, but she does all the baking. I'm not generally any good at it, so that's really fine by me. For further proof of this phenomenon, please view the following.




Isn't that great? Who else's spouse does that? I know. I'm lucky. And the chocolate chip cookies came out beautifully.



Oh, there were sooo many more cookies than that when they were done, but that was the first batch. And, on top of all that, there's still half a batch of cookie dough left...after four dozen were already baked. Awesome, cookies for later on in the month in the freezer. Love it.

Anyway, I'm headed off to finish my Ballband dishcloth. Yep. Another damned dishcloth. Gotta love 'em. :)