Needles & Spiders & Paint...(sigh)

Hmm, where to start? Ok, I finally broke down and got those Brittany needles off ebay. I still can't believe I paid 60 bucks for a single pair of needles but I love the tops of these so much. They are exquisite! Even better than the current ones they make. What I don't understand is they told me in a recent e mail that they may produce this Victorian top again in the far future. (scratching my head) Why the far future? They are currently making crochet hooks with this top, would seem to me knitting needles would be no big deal...they all start out teh same way, just one gets a hook at the end and one gets tapered. It's not as if it's any big deal they need to set up for. And I think it looks superb in Birch wood.

Here's an idea, if anybody else feels as strongly about these as I do (and they do make a handsome addition to any knitters collection of needles!) write to Brittany and tell them you want the Victorian tops back in Birch. Maybe if they get enough letters, they'll produce them again. I could see it if they weren't doing that top at all but they are cranking it out on crochet hooks.

Yes, this is another spider I did for going on a pillow. I'm in the process of working on the back but haven't done any knitting in a while. I can see there's probably going to be spiders all over my house before long LOL!

If any of you got Barbara Walkers book with the spider, please check it out. I had to send mine back to them for replacement. I was missing half the book. Mine went up to the mosaic charts then started back in with page 99 so something went wonky. Hopefully it was only my book.

Still scraping the ceiling but it's in the final stages, not much more to do.

Seems I had a lot more to say but I can't recall any of it now so I guess I'll go work on the ceiling. Please click on the link & write to Brittany! :-)

Home Improvement?

Not too sure about that, a small job turned into a larger job which is turning into an even larger one than that. Long story short, I've not been ignoring you guys or my blog but I started to scrape my upstairs hall ceiling as it was cracking. What started out to be a small touch up turned into me now scraping every ounce of this crap down to the substrate. Along the way I'll need to spackle the bits of ceiling that are crumbling. UGH! You can see here what I'm doing. I've got serious thoughts on leaving it as is and saying it's Abandoned Asylum chic. What do you think? Yeah...me neither, besides I'll loose money when I sell this hell hole. (Pictures seem to be giving Blogger a problem at the moment)

Right then....

I've not got any knitting done since I stated this last week around this time. My only saving grace was the past two nights, Travel Channel and National Geographic channel respectively had on shows about roller coasters. And the season starts next week. Great Adventure opens next Friday the Chris and I won't be going this early. I've set a goal for this summer..to conquer my fear of 200+ foot drops....that means Nitro, although that's stupid as I've been on Chiller, tho that starts out flat and the end you go up a 200 foot spike only to drop down and do it all again backwards. To be fair, the spike is at such a severe angle that you cannot see the ground below you. You can only see the sky when you're at the top of the spike. I think I also need to really try to get my fear in check and do Kingda Ka. Chris and I stood and watched it for about an our last year but for some reason, this year just seems like it's the year for me to do all this stuff....I just turned 38, I'm not sure how long I'll be able to do these new fangled rides. I'll do any roller coaster on earth under 200 feet...I don't care how many drops it has, how many loops it has...it's all good but I've had a phobia about those over 200 feet and this is my year I think to conquer and move on :-)

My Sentiments Exactly...

While not knitting related, this struck a chord in me. It was in the paper this morning and pretty much sums up my feelings.

For Moon & Jason-Bats & Spiders :-)

I have to remember to comment to my comments more. I didn't mean to keep anybody is suspense LOL! Here's the bat & the spider.

The bat is a lot of fun...very easy to do and shows up quite well. It would look sharp somewhere on a sweater...don't you think....or I'm thinking some type of table wear....I'm just kooky for bats....especially since they used to enter my house frequently when I lived with my dad. But that can turn into a whole nother post, suffice to say I'm an honest to goodness bat fan. I think they're cute and they are amazing to watch.

The spider....this was not hard but requires a lot of concentration. You're twisting stitches every which way. It is amazing to watch take shape and I thin she uses every knitting technique known to mankind in the 53 rows it takes to complete it LOL! Unfortunately, it doesn't show up all that well in this photo. I think maybe the yarn is too busy for it...trust me, look at it and you can see it's shape.

It is QUITE large. 9 inches...oh my! LOL! This simply MUST be used in a sweater. I need to design a spider sweater. It's too cool a design.

Crochet

Time for a change of pace. I found this afghan in my mom's attic around Christmas time. This has to be at least 20 years old, most likely older. I remember her working on this. Ironically, it matches my bedroom walls. So I've been working on it off and on in between knitting projects. Last week I also ordered a Brittany crochet hook. It has the top on it like their old knitting needles that I'll never own a set of :-( If the crochet hook is birch, I don't understand why they don't continue to make the knitting needles with that top on them. I remember reading somewhere that said they discontinued them due to breakage. Crochet hooks don't break? They could put a disclaimer on the knitting needles saying they are for decorative purposes only so if you break them, they don't have to replace them. That's fair, no? I'd go along with that.

I wish I knew how to add pictures aside from just the top of a post...I'd post pictures of the Barbara Walker spider and the bat. I'll save that for tomorrow to. Now, I'm going back to my afghan.

Bats and Spiders and Turtles, oh my!

Chris and I went to Boston yesterday and after stopping in several stores, I found and bought Barbara Walker's 3rd Treasury of knitting patterns. I thought they were out of print since a quick search on Amazon showed only used copies available. When I got home and started looking through it, lots of ideas started going through my mind. I think I need to come up with a pattern for my own sweater. I have to use the spider, it's gorgeous. I also quite like the bat. There's a lot of really beautiful cable patterns. I'll need to ask for the other 3 volumes for Yule or something.

I had started to knit the bat last night to see what it looked like in DK weight yarn but 3/4 of the way through it I was interrupted by a phone call and after 2 hours on a cell-phone-call-from-hell I can't figure out where I am this morning. Trust me, what I did looks cool. It will end up being used in some sweater.

ANYHOO....I picked Koyaanisqatsi up last weekend and forgot how incredible it was. I don't think I appreciated it enough as a teen but seeing it now, through older and more jaded eyes, it's an experience. If nothing else, the soundtrack is great to knit by :-) Yesterday, I got the final chapter in the trilogy, Naqoyqatsi. It's good but I don't like it as much

No pictures this time....

iPod Music

I was over on Ginx's blog last night and saw this and thought I'd do it too. It's been forever since I did any type of meme. So here goes.

"Open iTunes or Windows Media Player to answer
the following. Go to your library. Answer, no matter
how embarrassing it is."

How many songs? 1446

Sort by artist
First artist: 3 Doors Down (Kryptonite)
Last artist: ZZ Top (Leggs)


Sort by song title
First Song: 2 Minutes to Midnight by Iron Maiden
Last Song: Youth Gone Wild by Skid Row

Sort by time
Shortest Song: "Evil" (0.2 seconds) (not really a song but a stinger)
Longest Song: Freebird live (10.35) by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Sort by album
First Album: ...Twice Shy by Great White
Last Album: WOW by Wendy O. Williams

First song that comes up on shuffle: Forever Free by W.A.S.P.


Most Played Song: Nightingale ( a.k.a Freya Falconing on her site) by my friend Lylith
And these are the first 10 songs that iTunes chose for me today:

1. Where's California ~ Teena Marie
2. Too Late For Love ~ Def Leppard
3. Unchained Melody ~ Righteous Bros.
4. Close My Eyes Forever ~ Lita Ford & Ozzy Osbourne
5. Queen of the Broken Hearts ~ Loverboy (Hey! I forgot about them!)
6. Someday ~ Nickelback
7. Dream Weaver ~ Gary Wright
8. You've Got Another Thing Comin' ~ Judas Priest
9. Learning To Fly ~ Pink Floyd
10. I Don't Believe In Love ~ Queensryche

Lotsa Goodies

Chris and I spent the day walking round Boston on Saturday. I wanted to look for some solid sock yarn to try out these socks. Scroll down until you see Conservative Socks. That is the black/purple/orange thing you see in the photo. I really like the design, it's unique but it looking like it's turning out enormous. Anybody wanna wear it with me? I got the gauge so we'll see...it might just be that the yarn is solid so my eye is seeing an unbroken piece of fabric where the other yarns I've used were variegated.

I also got two pair of Brittany needles. These are nice but they aren't the ones I want. The black walnut are just too expensive. I think I mentioned seeing them on eBay but the "Buy It Now" option was $65. and I'm not paying 65 bucks for a pair of knitting needles. And a new (to me) Mountain Colour yarn, Wildflower. I guess these will be socks too-just need to find a nice pattern for it. I'm tired of the universal sock pattern and not sure I want to do another pair of jaywalkers.

The Great American Aran Afghan is absolutely delicious to look through. I want to make this but with summer approaching, I'll hold off till fall. I may make a pillow of one.

On that note, is anyone familiar with Barbara Walker's books? I saw a block of a spider, I'm not sure if there was a web or not but I definitely remember seeing a 3-D spider. I cant remember what blog I saw it on but the person said it was Barbara Walker block. Does anyone know what book it is in? I looked through two on Saturday and didn't see it. I loved that spider! Would like to get the book it's in. Actually, the two books I did see I wanted to get but couldn't splurge on them.