She shot the binky?!?

Ravelry is gobbling up my life. While at work, I confess my thoughts often turn to yarn, colors, and stitches, and this especially happens during my, ahem, smoke breaks. Sitting alone, my inner eye goes to my stash, or to patterns I’ve recently seen, or to colorways, or to those ‘what if?’ ideas. You know the ones.

Like these two wafted through my head at different times this week. If hand painted yarns are just stretched out skeins that are literally painted upon with sponge brushes . . . couldn’t we knit up a sweater first, put it on a sweater blocker that’s been wrapped in plastic wrap, and paint directly on it? You know, like paint the cables one color and the rest another?

Or, and this one’s just crazy, I know. I half-jokingly thought about a line of knitting patterns called Hillbilly Knitting. You know, thermal stitched long-john looking-henleys, something with gingham check on it, bonnets, Nascar logos, etc. That got me to wondering what I might find if I just googled those two words: hillbilly knitting. Um, apparently some bloggers have taken to referring to crochet as ‘hillbilly knitting.’ Not sure how I feel about that, seeing as how I’m all three: a hillbilly, a knitter, and a crocheter. Trying to have a sporting sense of humor about it, but it’s still irking me.

Anyhoo. Ravelry. So I get home every day from work, wanting to look up one or two things I’d thought about. Or something I’d heard on a podcast while on that drive in. And after that, I plan to get on with the other things on my to-do list, but next I notice, it’s been hours since I’ve pulled my head out of my computer monitor. Sigh. This has got to stop. My housework is suffering, my WoW gaming is stalling even more, and it’s putting a huge dent in the actual knitting of anything.

But I’ve recently had another idea, that was shortly followed by the discovery of yet another little database feature on that site, and well, you know. I’ve been in Ravelry Land a lot this past week.

While browsing the patterns there, I felt guilty about the huge stash of books, magazines, and other printed patterns I already own. Legally. In hard print. So I started thumbing through them, and realized I could find my favorite printed ones on the site, and tag ‘em to my favorites list there, so I don’t have to plow through a ton of books anymore looking for the one I want.

In doing just that, I realized that by inputting my library onto Ravelry, I have a quick way to browse them already – just go to my library page, click on the book, click on the ‘see all patterns from this book,’ and there they all are. My entire pattern collection in one neat little place on my screen!

So yeah, ‘tween doing that, finding more things that can be done with sock yarn, and looking for ideas for the Noro stash, I’ve been swallowed up by the Ravelry monster. Hence this late blog entry (blush). And guys, the Unholey Monkey may very well be my next sock.

When not on Ravelry, I’ve been drooling over Miss Babs’ website – how did I not buy some of her stuff while I was at SAFF??? Is it October yet? How ‘bout now?

Speaking of Monkey socks, my Grape Apes are mostly getting knitted with morning coffee just before work. This morning I reached the point of the foot, where the toe shaping can begin. After I get this blog entry posted, and a shower underway, and some clothes folded, I just might do that tonight.

Remember me telling you about my new job as a coder for the Dermatology Associates of Knoxville? One of the benefits is some discounted cosmetic/spa services, and facial waxings are free for us. So last week I had my upper and lower lips waxed. Shush, I’m telling this because it was hilarious – lemme finish.

I’d never had it done before, but as I age, well, it was just time, okay? I braced for two bits of fabric to rip my hairs out, because I didn’t know that each lip is done in halves! Four times was what it took!

So anyone who might’ve stood just right outside the door would’ve heard the following:
“Okay, you ready?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
Rrrrrrrrrip! “Eeeep!”

Then a few moments later, “You ready?”
Rrrrrrrrrip! “Eeeep!”
Rrrrrrrrrip! “Eeeep!”
Rrrrrrrrrip! “Eeeep!”
“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Followed by a very meek, “Thank you.”

Okay, maybe ya just had to be there.
Today, I got my eyebrows done, with some shaping by somebody who knows what she’s doing, and I love them, and have been joking about getting new eyebrows for my birthday! I understand that the swollen Klingonese bumps will go away quickly.

This past Sunday was another Fertile Turtles knitting group at our local bookstore's coffee shop. Babies are in the air, lemme tell ya. Well not literally. It's not like raining babies or anything, though it is storming outside at the moment in an unseasonably spring like way. And we have babies on the way: two amongst us Turtles and one of my long-time friends is expecting her first grandbaby soon. So yeah, baby things are on lots of needles these days. So, um, I browsed Ravelry for baby patterns too. I may need an intervention . . .

Us older moms got to talking about when our kids were still babies, and you know how them memories put us all in a right baby mood!

We remembered how we each got our babies to finally give up their pacifiers, and Son, if you're reading this, don't worry. Mary Beth's cousin's story has yours beat by a long shot (pun intended).

That cousin kept her pacifier until she was around 3 or 4 years old, at which time she was allowed to shoot it with a shot gun - I'm not making this up! The grown ups balanced it on a rail or some such, helped her aim, and she shot the thing! I hear tell she bagged her first deer at the tender age of six - her age, not the deer's. These days, she's a young woman attending college and changing majors on a weekly basis.

This is Mary Beth's dog sweater being knit up, once the gauge issues were cleared up enough to proceed. That pattern had some really wonky numbers, as written, but Mary Beth is a clever knitter and is making this thing happen anyway - love her.

And this is another pair of felted booties by MB, and Nicole's baby cocoon in the works. Nicole finished the baby bunny hat! Wow, is there a spring thing happening lately, or what?

Here, I tried to capture the colors of Brooke's yarn in her shawl. They're very subtle, and I was shocked to realize that this shawl we've watched grow isn't gray or beige at all. It's a multi-pastel! I want a shot of this in some full spectrum sunlight. C'mon spring, hurry up!




This is that sugar yarn that Kim's been using for some baby booties. It even looks like sugar - I just wanna toast it or swirl it in some coffee or something, everytime I see it.

And for the love of all that makes us knitters melt, would you look at this not-knitted thing! This is those squares I told ya about, that Raeus is making on her Weave-it! loom. I did get off the Ravelry site enough to prowl around eBay looking for one of these. Pert near won an auction for one too, but not. Sigh.




She's sewn them into this cardigan, and this is soooooo being used as my 'puter wallpaper at the moment!









(I am sooooo digging this thunderstorm we're getting in the middle of January - I've missed them this winter. But I am thinking about postponing the shower until in the morning, having been zapped through the hand-held shower head once before.)

Barbara has started yet another baby cardigan, this one in a mint green. Angelika is trying her hand at the Calorimetry pattern I love so much. And Kristine brought more finished objects that shall remain undescribed until she's ready to publish. With them, though, she's discovered the magic of the test-knitters' forums on Ravelry.

Oh yeah, remember that craft room, that hubby has been fixing up for me? With the butter yellow walls and white trim? It’s ready to move in to! That’s gonna be our upcoming weekend, right there. And I just got two more new books to add to the mountain that will be neatly sorted on shelves in there. These arrived from Amazon the other day, and as I opened the packages to see them, I saw a theme. I got Toe-Up! By Gardiner and Knitting from the Top by Walker. No, standing on my head to change the direction of my knitting was not an option.