Beltaine

I just wanted to wish those of you that follow the left hand path a Happy Beltaine :-)


B*B

A Meme

Lissa over at Am Knot did this and I liked it so I tought I'd steal it and do it too. Hope she doen'st mind


FAVOURITES

TV show: Charmed, X Files reruns, Family Guy (Stewie rocks!), Bev Hills 90210 reruns-yes I was a fan of the original run (Did I just admit that?) and I still love it.
Flower: Foxglove
Alcohol: Absinthe
Movie: Oh god, this could end up 6 miles long. The Exorcist, SAW 2, Harry Potter series, Full Meal Jacket to name a few
Color: Purple
Sport: Ski Jumping (I'd say roller coastering but I don't think that's a real sport??? LOL!)
Actor: Keanu Reeves, Dean Winters, Christopher Meloni,
Music: Generally 80's style heavy metal but anything really so long as it's not rap/hip hop.
Season: Fall
Book: Anything by Richard Laymon.

1 0 F A C T S

Birthplace: I wish New York City but Boston, MA.
Hometown: I tell people New York City but a small suburb just N. of Boston.
Height: 5'10"
Hair color: Blond, and not blond enough
Hair length: approaching the middle of my back
Hair style: a mess usually ROTFLOL! Plain...no more perms or I'd have hay on top of my head.
Eye color: brown unless I wear contacts in which case they'd be grey-or shimmery like moonlight for special f/x
Skin color: White...actually, I'm sorta heavily tattooed so I guess I'm what you'd call coloured.
Shoe size: 9 1/2 I guess. In dress shoes, all differnet sizes (designer shoes are not always the most confortable so I get various sizes dependng on the shoe)
Citizenship: US of A

1 0 T H I S O R T H A T S

Love or lust?: Love
Hard liquor or beer?: Hard Liquor
Night or day?: Day
Hook-ups or relationship?: Relationships
T.V. or internet?: TV
Wild night out or romantic night in? A night in. I'm getting very boring as I get older LOL!
Saturday or Sunday?: Sunday
Colored or black and white picture?: black & white...especially if it's infrared
Phone or in person?: Either
Bill Pullman or Bill Paxton?: Can I say both? Would that make me a pig?

1 0 H A V E Y O U E V E R S

Have you ever been caught sneaking out? Yes, an Ozzy Osbourne concert when I was 14 and did I catch hell when I returned home.
Have you ever done something you regret?: Yes
Have you ever been on a house boat?: Not that I'm aware of
Have you ever unintentionally injured a small child?: No
Have you ever been charged with sexual assault?: Eww, No
Have you ever had your revenge?: I leave that up to Karma. I don't want to come back to pay it off.
Have you ever finished an entire jaw breaker?: No, I lost my taste for candy after biting in to a Blow Pop and it pulled a brace off one of my teeth. My orthodontist was not amused.
Have you ever stayed up all night til the sun came up: Oh many, many times when I was a teen and in my 20's.
Have you ever been caught by your parents with a hickey? Yes, kinda hard for a guy to blame it on a curling iron
Have you ever been caught by your parents doing anything more than making out?: Oh, umm, Yes...and my dad learnt to knock after that LOL! (I was 19)

10 A R E Y O U S

Are you missing someone right now?: Sort of
Are you happy? I will be when I get my behind on a roller coaster finally.
Are you interested in taking a free stress test?: No, I fear the result. My stress is very high as it is.
Are you bored? No
Are you German?: I may have been in a past life
Are you Italian?: This goes back to the reincarnation thing above
Are you French?: Again, the reincarnation thing...perhaps in a prior life.
Are you loyal to the smelly European countries of your ancestors?: Smelly country of ancestors? Have you been around some college kids? Tower Records in Boston used to be good for clearing out your sinuses when the college kids shopped.
Are your parents still married?: No, my mom died 3 years ago and they divorced when I was 15 anyway.
Are you into someone right now?: Yes-I have a partner and a dream partner. Is that an Incubus?

Moving Right Along

I sat on my sofa this morning with a cup of coffee and my afghan. I finished it whilst watching Charmed. Now that that is out of the way, it's time to make some decisions.

I have that Perry Ellis cable sampler from Vogue Knitting magazine that I'm maybe a quarter of the way done with. However, I have been so inspired by the Barbara Walker cable books that I'm thinking perhaps it's time to rip that cable sampler out and use the wool to design my own sweater. I'd probably enjoy it more and it'll be a new challenge. I'm already knitting this cable sampler for the third time and am tired of it even tho it is a gorgeous sweater.

That said, I had joined the Socks The Rock club and have the first kit I could knit. Just not sure if I want to do another pair of socks just yet. They're fast, fun and easy but designing my own sweater seems a bit more interesting at the moment.

Rowan has a book out, Denim, that my friend Kyra (her link is over there on the right- Knitmeister) had started knitting a sweater from, Patrick is the name of the sweater. It's a gorgeous cable crew neck. I'd love to knit that as well.

I suppose in between I'll start to heavily fringe that striped afghan I did.

Not that I need another afghan but I've had visions of a knotted granny square afghan done in shades of purple. Somewhere along the line I stumbled upon a web site that had crochet granny squares but they were a Celtic Knot style. Has anybody else seen them? I'd say it was around February I saw it. I don't think it was The Crochet Dude...I think it was a woman who did them. I'm not sure if she had a pattern for them yet or not.

I'm Here...I'm Here

Hell....I hadn't realised how much time had gone by since my last post. I got wrapped up in finishing the hall and then got into some spring cleaning which led into taking my car in for it's 3 year maintenance check and getting wrapped up in the opening of Great Adventure.

Let's see, I finished the crochet afghan I posted several entries ago. Now I found another afghan. This is knit in garter stitch and is basically a way to use up scraps. I started this one over 20 years ago, found it in my mom's attic so she must have worked on it some and now I"m finishing it up. This seems to be the season for me to finish things. I have to say I absolutely detest using the circular needles on this for some reason. I've never disliked circulars but on this one, for some reason I do.

I dyed some curtains purple and now am not sure I like them. Chris does, I think I may end up stripping the colour. I got a little carried away after watching Purple Rain a week or so ago.

I've not started any new projects, nor have I finished the spider pillow. I need to get another skein of fisherman wool for that. I don't think I'm going to have enough for the back.


I wanted to jot a quick entry to let you all know I'm still alive LOL! I have some catching up to do but right now I've got some more stuff to organise here.

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.

Knock Knock....

Anybody remember me? I guess with the Olympics over, it's time to get back to normal. But damn what a let down...nothing exciting to watch on tv anymore. Aside from the skating, I really enjoyed these games. I think the new scoring system sucks and is ruining the artistry of figure skating. What Surya Bonaly was highly criticised for 12 years ago or so is now what skating is all about. SO many falls, it looks sloppy now. Oh well...that's just my opinion of it. I enjoyed the other games far more although I did love the skating exhibition. And I started to get into curling....it's really a lot more interesting than I thought. And through it all, I still really want to try luge! Now comes the countdown until Vancouver.

I didn't join the knitting Olympics although I did start another pair of Jaywalkers using some green yarn. I've been itching for green socks and I love this colourway. I'm on the gusset of the second sock now. There's a pair of socks that are rather unique looking that I need to find some solid sock yarn for...I think I'd like to tackle those next.

On these green socks, I thought I'd try something different and went with the Eye of Partridge heel flap. I think it doesn't show up too well in a variegated yarn. It looks a bit different, more dense but you can't really see the honeycomb effect too well.

Man, wasn't the Flying Tomato great? I love Shaun White!


That's really all that's gone on since my last post. My display shit the bed last Friday so I had to go buy another one. Really didn't need that added expense but I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.

So you can see I lead a rather dull day to day existence ROTFLOL! The Olympics come on and life stops. I don't answer my phone, I don't answer the door, I don't want interruptions. I told Chris if anybody rings me, tell them I've died. LOL! This dude loves his winter games!

Hope you all are well and I promise to catch up and stay caught up now. And now...for my sock....well, actually, it's up there on top.

Listening to: I Can't Stand It ~ Lita Ford

Entrelac at the Olympics

I'm sorry I've been neglecting my blog lately. I guess I get so wrapped up in the Olympics. I had to make an appointment with my tax preparer who is taking me on Saturday afternoon. I even told him to please hold on,I had to check to see what games were on the Olympics before I could commit to that time LOL! He was not amused, judging by his tone. Hey I'm sorry, these only happen once every 4 years.

Speaking of the games, I"m sort of mixed about them. I'm seeing no medal ceremonies like in years past, the figure skating seems to be all jumbled up, more so than I ever remember, they're not really talking to many of the skaters. Not that I'm only tuning in for the skating, I love almost all of them. I'm jus as rabid, if not more-so on the luge and ski jumping.

And have you gotten a look at the medals? I just saw my first one last evening. Man they look cheap. The look like spray painted CD's. Nagano Japan medals were beautiful, these look cheesy-just like Johnny Weir does LOL! God I hate him.

So contrary to how it sounds, I am really enjoying them. I'm sure I'll sleep for a week and a half when its over. I'm not used to staying up until 11.30 or later. I'm usually in bed by 9 or 9.30 the latest so my ass is dragging by the time I'm hauling it to bed.

I've been knitting an entrelac scarf off and on while the games have been going on. I did this in the mid 80's but it seemed easier and neater then for some reason. I should try switching needles, I've not done this on addi turbos before and that may be why. There's a sweater in an old issue of Knitters that has an entrelac yoke . It looks beautiful, the body is brown & the entrelac pattern is graduating shades of brown from dark to almost white. I'm debating weather to attempt it...it's not a 'real' pattern but is based on EZ's percentage system. I'll keep reading through it to see if I can figure out and if I can do it. I hope I can, it's a very handsome sweater.

Fine eyelash scarf, available at Saks

Modeling the scarf is Midnight....my ever-patient familiar. She had enough when I tried to turn the scarf into a babooshka, she was having none of that LOL!

This was Bernat Boa I had left over from an afghan. I dunno why I decided t make a scarf out of it, I suppose to see what it looked like...I'd certainly not wear it but it is the perfect size for Midnite. Parhaps she can wear it next winter, assuming we have a winter next year. The colour works well against her fur, yes?

I am the King of Boring Subject Lines

So why even try to come up with them? ROTFLOL! I guess I'm just not that clever anymore LOL!

Anyway, this morning I was surfing round and found Sock Bug. I got all excited only to discover that they seem to be done on two needles. Hmm....I won't do socks on two needles, I'll have to figure out how to do them on 4. I don't think it should be terribly difficult?

I saw this while having my coffee and it didn't sit well with me. Then I thought back to all the rumours of how e mail would no longer be free and we'd be charged for it. I guess I won't worry about this until it happens but corporate greed doesn't surprise me. Funny thing is, I remember the internet before there ever was such a thing as the WWW and a friend of mine went off the deep end when the WWW started creeping in. He was staunchly opposed to it saying the internet was never designed to be that way. He was a big fan of the old http://and the 6 mile long url of archaic addresses.

Enough of that crap...this has nothing to do with knitting.

Everybody getting excited over the Olympics? This will be the first once I've seen since the '94 games in Norway and I can't wait. Of course, it makes me want to run right out and try the luge and bobsledding and figure skating and ski jumping. I guess I get pretty close to ski jumping...kinda-sorta...with the roller coasters in the summer. Naaaa, I guess not really . Oh well...

Socks Done

Hell's bells I have the worst subject lines. I should have my buddy A come up with some for me. He always has interesting e mail subject lines.

I've just spent the past six hour scrubbing woodwork down and doing 60 loads of laundry. I'm tired now so I thought I'd post to my blog and then go do a bit of knitting.

Anyhoo....the Jaywalker socks are done, I finished those Friday evening. I really love these. They don't slouch down at all so let's hear it for bias knitting! I had attempted to start the Friday Harbour socks from Nancy Bush, however the cuff was not working out..couldn't get the second needle to work out properly so I pulled it out and put the yarn away. I decided to get the cable sampler sweater I had begun yet again and work on that. So that's what I've been doing since yesterday.

My mind must be getting old because I'm up to the sleeve shaping (it's a dolman sleeve) and it's taking me a while to figure out which way to work the charts as I cast on at the start of each row. It's funny, the first time I knit this I did it in the colour blocking it was designed in and was really excited. Now, I'm really not that excited about it. I guess I've done it too much. It's a good looking sweater, I just could care less LOL! If it works out this time, fine (I'll be shocked but happy). If not, I'm just throwing all the yarn out, not even going to attempt to save it. I've had it with this sweater.

I was stupid, I said this would have been brilliant in natural fisherman wool and I end up buying charcoal yarn for it 3 or 4 years ago. The original colours were stunning...all muted gem tones. Green, purple, blue and aqua. I do wish Aarlan yarn were still available as I still think even the yarn I have for this is too soft. I am using Jaeger Matchmaker yarn...Aarlan Royale is what it was designed in. My substitute doesn't look like it has the hand of the Aarlan but oh well LOL!

Jaywalking

Today was a good day. Chatted with Kae a bit in the early afternoon (Thanks Kae, that was fun!) and then got down to business and playing with my new toy. I got a yarn swift and ball winder this morning.


This thing is so much fun I could wind yarn all day. I think it's definitely time I start trying to dye some yarn now. Anyway, I wound some alpaca I had left over from the fingerless mittens, this yarn here from an afghan, a skein of Cherry Hill Tree sock yarn and that was it for today. I wish I had waited to wind the Socks That Rockyarn but I was too impatient and wound that the old fashioned way over two chair backs. The colourway, Fire On The Mountain was too hot for me not to dive right in.

Here is my Jaywalker sock so far.


I'm loving this. The colour is awesome and the zig zag pattern is way cool. The only thing I hate dislike about these is they are knit on size 1 dpn. The needles are so thin they feel like they're going to snap at any moment. They also make it harder to work the heel flap as the stitches want to slide off instead of slip over to the other needle. But I think these socks are well worth it. Can't wait to wear these.

Man I wish my gram was alive, I think she'd have a different opinion on socks now a days than the pair she did that got tossed aside.

Rockin' socks, wristband & hacking on a Friday

I guess I'm making up for lost time that I wasn't posting :)

First of all, I got the Socks That Rock yarn in the post today. I didn't expect it this quickly but I'm going to wind it and you know what I'll be doing tonight. Fire On The Mountain is the colourway. Also sandwiched between them is the wristband with that yarn I posted about yesterday. I can see why they discontinued it-you have to stop, drop and untangle every couple rows or it knots up.


I need to get me a yarn swift and ball winder. I do this the old fashioned way, with my feet LOL! Or sometimes on the backs of two chairs to hold the skein taught.

I'm freaking out-not sure if I'm being scammed or just over reacting to SPAM. I rarely go into my photography site anymore as I've not taken pictures in a long time. Long story short, in my web mail for my site, there's a note from someone on eBay asking about an item I'm selling. It looks official but I have never sold anything there and I would certainly not use my web site to do so...nowhere in the note was my registered eBay name. The thing that is spooking me is the note was addressed to me at my web site, infrared visions.com That seems a little too coincidental, no? I've since turned mail off for that web site and I spent hours yesterday changing all my passwords. Ordered my credit report this morning and nothing is wonky there. I sent a copy of the e mail I got to ebay to see if they can figure out what is going on.

No, I did not reply to the e mail, I've been phished often enough, especially by fake Pay Pal e mails that I don't reply to them period.

Which leads me to say sometimes technology sucks!

I feel better now that I got that off my chest LOL! Now it's time for lunch, then winding this yummy yarn.

Listening to AC/DC ~ For Those About To Rock

Aran Afghans

Ok folks, here 'tis. One shot of the afghan and one of the Inspector making sure it's up to snuff. OH...BTW-this is Midnite..making her official Blog debut. Don't tell her she's cute...she's already got an ego the size of Texas.


Listening to I Don't Believe In Love ~ Queensryche