Monthly Archives: May 2014

May 28, 2014 · 8:00 AM

…. — -. . -.– / -.-. — .– .-..

I finished up my second Honey Cowl.

I prefer to call it the Morse Code Cowl.

honeycowl coverup

I like this pattern best in two colors to make the dots and dashes pop.

honeycowl chair

I haven’t found a good spot to photograph things in the new place yet.  And this “chianti” Lamb’s Pride yarn is difficult to capture – it’s more of a cranberryish burgundy.  And you’d never know that these walls are either a seemingly sickly nicotine-stained yellowish greyish beige or a depressing cold blue that once in awhile becomes an interesting periwinkle, but usually just stays stand-offish and sullen and needs to be covered up ASAP.

honeycowl dashes

Both sides are right sides (it still needs to be blocked).

honeycowl dots

This is a big one too – very cozy.  The colors aren’t quite right for me (or most of my clothes) either, but I suspect I’ll wear it a lot anyway.

(Morse Code translator found here)

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May 21, 2014 · 2:49 PM

Poisonfuckingivy

lilac in fiestaware

I love that I have a nice big yard in which to putter and prune.

I love discovering all of the things previously planted, blown in by the wind, or sown via bird ass.

I love walking barefoot outside (except when I think of ringworm).

But I utterly despise, loathe, fear, hate, wildly shake my fist at Poison Ivy.

poison ivy hell

It is everywhere.

Believe me, I looked when we first inspected the house – not a hairy perverse vine in sight – but it was winter.  Now it isn’t, and I’ve found it’s as populous as Dandelions – delicate little tendrils that snap when pulled and sink back to maniacally multiply.

poison ivy with the cedars

I am exceedingly dermatologically allergic to that leaves of three bastard.

poison ivy in groundcover

Despite the thorough and methodical precautions I took for my first attempt to remove it, it still got me…

poison ivy on house

And there is so so so much more…

poison ivy on compost

And I just might have to loose a lovely Azalea that it’s gotten way too cozy with and started naming their evil offspring…

poison ivy in azalea

 Death to Poison Ivy!!!

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May 14, 2014 · 8:41 AM

Trend cringe…

I don’t follow trends in fashion or home decor or electronics or cars or diets or, or, or…

And I don’t usually like what is trendy anyway.

I like certain colors and color combinations and sometimes they pop in and out of popularity, but never has the popularity merged with my need to buy.

I bought a huge wool rug for a song in 2007ish – normally I don’t go for stuff that looks like it came from stores like Ceramics Shed or Box and Bucket, but I like yellows and greys and greens and browns and of course wool, so I got it for our then large green and yellow dining room.  But now it fits best in our living room, with brown furniture and soon-to-be yellow* walls.  But we need curtains, and we need really wide curtains, so making them seemed like the likely option, so I ordered some fabric samples.

yellow grey ikat

Then I went to the obnoxious store named for the thing at which you shoot arrows for something dumb and little and unavailable in our little town, and there were so many yellow and grey and ikat-like patterned things everywhere…

I don’t like that – I usually go against the tide – my home decor and self-presentation usually make people who follow trends cringe and look at me pitifully, and that’s the way it should be – I don’t like them, I don’t want to be like them.  My car is from the ’90s and isn’t an SUV, shopping is not a hobby, I hate big-box-made-in-china-inflated-prices-for-low-quality-sh*t-especially-things-called-designer-but-just-generally-suck, and I know that in itself makes me a stereotype and stuffed in another big bag of the same folks, but at least it’s smaller one – a biodegradable, non-bleached, organic, waxed paper one perhaps?

In the end, I found cheap linen curtains that will have to do for the meantime, so I just ordered a little of the ikat fabric for some pillows.

*Oh holy hell, I can’t find a good pale mustardy yellow paint!!!  They either look to lemon, or too grey, or too orange (I like orange, but the dining room is likely to be an orange variant) or shite under artificial light, or shite under natural light…

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May 7, 2014 · 9:55 AM

A sink hole…

We’re at that point in the house work where we’re finally seeing progress and remarkable change, but feeling utterly exhausted and in all kinds of pain.

I miss knitting a little in the evenings, but I just can’t do anything remotely detail-oriented or delicate with my hands at the moment.

plaster hand

And despite a daily shower, I still carry with me some of the wall colors.

paint arm

But the painful parts are often unexpected and are the main factor to curtail any leisurely handiwork.

ikea bruise

Our weeks-long back ordered kitchen sink finally arrived and we installed it immediately (and oh so securely) only to find it was defective.  The drain hole was more oval than round.  We called the big blue and yellow Swedish store and complained.  They said they were already made aware that a batch of them were defective and the new ones (also back ordered) likely would be as well.

I’m tired of doing dishes in the bathroom sink.  I got through the first day or two pretending to live in a seedy flophouse full of beat-down musicians and washed-up artists, then felt thanks that my ancestors were the tenement dwellers and not me (not yet).

ikea sink hole

So I tore that Domsjo a new one.

ikea oval sink hole

 After more than an hour of aggressive filing, and several bruises later, the hole became round enough.

(In the end, we still had to call a plumber to hook it up, thanks to the previous owner’s pipe-y hacks.)

I’m thinking how I’d like to put the previous owner and a certain blue and yellow big store in a sink hole right about now…

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May 1, 2014 · 9:34 AM

Knight of the Deep

The Noble Hero balaclava pattern by Annie Watts of Wattsolak has just been released!

Last year I test knit this fun to knit, and to wear pattern.

Noble Hero-Close Up

I finished it while on a bizarre early summer week-long vacation in the White Mountains that started off with a snowstorm and ended with temperatures in the high 90Fs, so it was too icy and cold to hike in the beginning, and too hot and humid by the end.

But it gave me more knitting time.

Though it would compliment and complete your awesome new space suit, I thought it also looked like a knight’s chainmail coif:

Noble Hero-Knight

Or a deep-sea diver’s helmet:

Noble Hero-Deep Sea Diver

Either way, I really enjoyed knitting the piece, learned a new technique, and N has taken it and enjoys wearing it, so I’ll have to make another for myself!

The pattern is well-written and was very clear even in the testing stage.  I had gauge and made no modifications.  The only thing I’ll keep in mind for next time is to loosen up on the applied icord, or go up a needle size for it – I learned how to do it on this project and I started out a little too tight.

This was also my first time knitting with Quince & Co., and I liked it – I chose these muted colors because I’d love to have a larger garment made from one of them at some point, and wanted to see the colors in person.

Now to think of colors for a Noble Hero for myself – perhaps handspun…?

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