WHOLE BOOKS FOR A DIME?

Currently, I'm working on a pair of those awesome slippers I mentioned in the last post. I think I'm going to need more yarn, maybe we can take a ride out this weekend to get it. I live only 2 hours from WEBS :-) I have a GPS, I should just plunk my ass in my car and go myself. Horrible to be so phobic.

Since I've been cleaning out my grandparents apartment in hopes of renting it, MY place has become a shithole. Boxes EVERYWHERE. If this is only a few things from my grandparents' place, I shudder to think what it will look like when we move from this dump.

In any event, the knitting books my grandmother had have been wild. A LOT of patterns, and I do mean A LOT. It's sort of bitter-sweet to look back when the newspaper had a "Chatters" column where knit & crochet patterns were exchanged-my gram has a lot of patterns clipped from newspapers. One upon a time, even magazines like Family Circle, Good Housekeeping and Woman's Day had free patterns as well. Those were the days. I guess it's too much to ask to have a pattern or two when there's more pressing issues in life such as how, when, and where to have sex. I guess I am an odd-ball...sex is overrated, I'd much rather knit any day of the week. No mess to clean up, no sweaty sheets to change and there's something to show for your time.



I was thinking of trying to make a book with the newspaper clippings, sort of like the Griffin & Sabine books. If you've not read those. Griffin & Sabine is a very tactile read. It's a series of letters written back and forth between the two characters. You open envelopes of different sorts on each page and pull out & unfold a "letter" to read. Not sure how I'd do that with knitting patterns but take a look at some of the prices on these books. You couldn't even buy a single pattern for this price today.



I go to get my roots bleached today....this SHOULD be the day I turn totally white. We'll see. He better be less rough and messy than the last time or he's gonna hear about it.

HA! I just saw we can now add video clips. Hmmm, Chris got a clip of me on a coaster this weekend-I'll have to try that later.

Bales of Hay and knitting slippers

Here's a couple of photos of the bale of hay I call hair.




Actually, it's not too bad at all. It is not as damaged or straw like as I remember it being the first time I went this light. The top of my hair is pure snow white-I wish it would just all go pure snow white on its own and be done with it. I'm not sure if the rest of it will get that light next time. He was EXTREMELY rough with me resulting in a lot of breakage. From my left eye in front straight back to my crown is all burned off. There's also a patch beside my left eye that he was so rough with he literally pulled my hair off. Someone doesn't want me blond? What am I to think? He was very sloppy too.he ruined a concert tee shirt I had with bleach, he got as much bleach on the floor, smock he made me wear and the mirror as he got on my hair. SHOWERED me when he shampooed all that crap out of my hair. Too bad I like it so light, I think it looks good and you can't even see the spot on top that is thinning anymore. You'd think in this day and age there'd be pills we could take to change hair colour. Minimal to no damage and be as simple as that. How hard can it be? There's just serious issues I seem to have with hairdressers. I don't seem to get on too well with them. I just can't win.

On the knitting front....I'm waiting for some wool to come in the mail so I can knit the most amazing pair of slippers ever. I can't wait to do these and show them to y'all! I'll wait for the spousal unit to get home so I can go to Boston and get the needles. I don't own DPN's past size 10.5's. He likes to go to Boston with me, I'd rather be there now so I could get home and do what I want.

I've been blogging how long now? I've had the same layout since I started. I need to figure out how to alter the template and do funky backgrounds and what now. I love basic black but I'm bored with it now.

Have I mentioned I cannot seem to get past Row 32 of that dragon lace shawl? I've started that 4 or 5 times now. I put it aside, won't try it for a while now.

Feeling: a lot of anxiety

Listening to: Mean Man by W.A.S.P. (this has become my new theme song)

Once more into the bleach

I finally found a new hair stylist who said he can do what I want. I go Thursday to get my roots done but he is doing my whole head so I'll be a total blond (that doesn't sound good! LOL!) and no more bloody foils. I told him I want to be pure white...weather he can achieve that I'm not sure. I'm not too keen on his attitude...maybe it's a guy thing but I don't like guys doing my hair. I think men turn out better with women doing their hair and vice versa. I'm getting nervous now that I'm going to end up with a lot of breakage which shouldn't happen if he stays on me watching like a hawk. I will not end up like I want on Thursday...if he takes me up to white, it'll be a slow, gradual process as my hair can fry off but in any event, I should appear much lighter once all the roots are done. That darkens it and makes me unhappy I think. I just wish I could figure out why this sudden 'need' to go pure snow white. My hair already knots up something fierce as it is when we ride roller coasters and I still have some natural hair. I can imagine when I'm totally bleached. OMG! LOL!

Sometimes I wish my hair wasn't thinning on top, I'd love to take a break from the bleach and dye my hair dark, to the same colour as Katharine McPhee's hair which is slightly darker than my natural colour was...oh how many years ago did that see the light of day? LOL! The darker my hair is, the more noticeable the thinning spot on top is which is why I keep it blond...the lighter my hair, the more invisible the thinning spot is.

On to knitting news....I think I'm going to abandon Rowan's Seahorse sweater. I like it but not enough to keep knitting it-my friend Kyra sent me a link last night for a new book coming out that has this sweater in it:




I love this so much so I think I'm going to rip Seahorse back and rewind the yarn into balls and wait for this book to come out and knit this. I'll have to order about 10 more balls which means the dye lot will probably be off some but that's ok...the yarn fades in the wash. I wish I could get hold of the designer to ask how much yarn it takes.

I guess this means I can go grab some sock yarn and get going on some new fall socks in the meantime LOL! I have a funky slipper pattern on the way to me too...can't WAIT to do those!

I also need to work on that dragon shawl...I've had nothing but trouble with one row. I love a challenge but this is proving to be to difficult and I usually don't have all that much trouble with hard stuff. It's the easy stuff that throws me.

New Socks

I was scanning some blogs and found these socks over on Criminy Jickets and thought I'd give them a whirl. I love the J-Walkers but wanted to try another pattern for a change. They knit up really fast but unfortunately, the cable pattern doesn't show up well in this yarn. It looks nice in person. The yarn was, I believe, Mountain Colours' Wildflower.






There's another cable sock I am dying to try but I just sent for yarn for a Dragon Shawl that should be coming any day. I don't know where I'm going to put the shawl. Maybe hang it on the wall since with my cat, it's a dangerous proposition to drape a lace shawl on the sofa. I may be biting off more than I can chew with this since I have never tried lace before and this looks quite involved.

The Fall issue of Interweave Knits arrived in my post box yesterday. Ummm, I'm officially asking that this autumn extends until next July as there's FAR too many things in there I want to knit. First of which is the Cobblestone sweater from Brooklyn Tweed. I've always loved what I've seen him do on his blog so it'll be a treat to get to knit one of his designs.

Lots of other stuff going on that I don't feel like getting into but we're going to go ride coasters again in 3 weeks. This is a record for us going to NJ and man it feels good!

Happy Knitting!