If you can help...

This is a geek thing, but I promised a friend I would spread the word.

An artist at Dragon Con had a piece of his artwork stolen from him. My friend is a fellow artist who is acquainted with the theft victim and we are trying to get word out - if you see this or have information about it, please follow the link and contact the original artist. I know y'all are knitters but this is a geek blog, too and geeks take care of one another.

Here is a LINK to the original blog

Socks N Dirge of Cerberus

Alright, I warn you, I am about to commit knitting sacrilege:

I don't really like knitting socks.

Gasp, shock! I know! I'm a knitter, and we're all supposed to like socks, right? I mean I have knit socks. Heck, I have knit four pairs in September alone (yeah, most of them were heavy socks, pick yer jaws up). And still socks are among my least-favorite projects.



Why you might ask? Easy. It isn;t turning the heel - I find that rather charming, actually. I don't like the interruption. I like zen knitting - back and forth, back and forth or round and round and round. Anything with changing needles, tangling yarn or potentially creating ladders irks me to some degree. I can hack it at the top of a hat because I have just spent the rest of my time joyously creating the body (or will be creating the body), but socks are continual: knit, stop, knit, stop, pull tight and get the yarn in the right position. Yargh.

Yeah, I know how to knit on two circulars, 4 DPNs, 5 DPNs... in the end I magic loop. One needle, less fuss. I sort of like working the foot of my current pair, which is from Charlene Schurch's Sensation Knitted socks - Small Capitals. The pattern balances nicely across the top on the foot, and the stockinette bottom seems to zoom by. But afterwards I'm doomed to make a pair of socks for my aunt who prefers 2x2 rib.

Yawn.

Heck, she doesn't just prefer... I can put book after book after book of amazing, lovely, creative, interesting sock patterns in front of her and she will go out of her way to find the basic beginner sock at the front of the book and tell me to 'make that sock'

Round and round and round and round, watch the ladders, watch for no yarnovers, finish one, knit a second, ARGH!

Usually when knitting irritates me, I turn towards my guilty pleasure: video games. I have a small selection (read: sizable stash) of favorites from the Atari 2600 up to the Playstation 2. Haven't gone newest gen yet - haven't found any games really worth playing on any system but the Wii, and my boyfriend has a Wii. Anyways (this all ties together, I promise) I favor two types of games: Mindless action adventure and serious RPG. Usually when stress kicks in I favor the former. Dynasy Warriors ("Watch me wade into a dozen dudes and righteously slay them with my magical powaz while being accompanied by period-accurate ancient Chinese hard rocks music...") and Devil May Cry - the first one - ("Jamie, why are you juggling blood-spraying zombies in the air with a hail of gunfire?" ""Cause it's fun, Mom...") are personal favs.

But I bought Dirge of Cerberus several months ago, Heck, maybe even a year or more ago - can't remember. Gainful adult employment does that to ya. Anyways, a while ago -and I hadn't played it yet. It looks so promising - RPG styled, action oriented, badass main character, prettyboy anime design. So what do you mean I have to go play almost first-person shooter? (third person shooter actually). I mean it's all about getting my ass kicked while I run around with a really big gun. See?


I bite at this game. I blow goats at it. RPG fans are not created to do shooter games. I aim everywhere but at the dudes I am supposed to be killing - and at times this reminds me of my sock knitting. I drop stitches forget patterns and occassionally forget to turn the freakin' heels and only notice this after I'm decreasing for the toe. I run around Dirge of Cerberus saying things like "You get back here, I'm gonna shoot you!" while wildly flailing and shooting the crap out of anything around me; and I knit socks while vowing "You get back here you damn dropped stitch! you will not evade me!"

This is cheaper than therapy. Trust me. :D

StashCat

Like a LOLCat, but lazier.

So, I have a new cat. Actually an old cat that is new again.

Hokay, let me try to explain. My mother and I swap cats. She lives on a farm and decided to rescue stray kittens, so she has a lot of cats. More cats than could really be considered normal and a house that is far too clean to have so many cats. I swear she's like a bionic woman when it comes to keeping a clean house with (*ahem*) fifteen cats.

Yes, fifteen.

Stop rolling your eyes, we used to have twenty. (The joke used to be 'I have two, my mother has the other 18 - cats are cheaper in packs of 20...)

Anyways she has a lot of very happy healthy cats in a disturbingly clean house. And when Sultan was a kitten he used to be called Meriadoc (because his brother was Pippin, 'natch) and he was supposed to be my cat. However my first cat, Robin, didn't like Meriadoc. So Robin stayed with me and Meriadoc stayed with my mom, who changed his name to Sultan. Thanks, Mom.

Anyways, after getting gainful employment and an apartment nearby said gainful employment, I wanted a cat with me in the apartment. But Robin is getting weird in his older age and he has decided that he will. Not. Move. Ever. Again. To the point where he hyperventilates and pulls out all of his fur if you try to move him to a new house. So that was a no. Meanwhile Sultan was banished to the basement for peeing on the baseboards (say that five times fast!) because he had dominant male issues.

So my mother sweet talked me into taking Sultan, again. He knows he new name now so I couldn't change it back. However being an only cat means he has had no peeing issues whatsoever. He does, however, believe he is prettier than any other creature on the farm, and he has also decided that my stash is his stash.



This is Herschnerrs Warehouse swag. Yum. I dig the Nob Hill Jewel Sparkle for kid's hats. Sultan prefers it for it's lovely bed-like qualities.

Look at him. He's smirking. Proud that he can shed on my yarn.

Jerk.

Oh Dear Me

I am a horrific blogger.

I really am. Stress gets to me and I stop writing.

However Ravelry is down tonight and I finally have a new computer and decent internet access and, well, a blog!

So I'm working on a Scotty hat. Dang is this a long hat! Long to wear, long to knit, LONG! It is for Eric, who is lovely and has a big head. Physically not egotistically ;-)

I have piles and piles and piles of photos. I must sort and post them.

Gainful Adult Employment

I has it.


When I ended last theatrical season, I swore to myself that this seasonal work thing was going to stop.  I was sick and tired of moving across the country every 7 months, and feeling like I was getting older with nothing permanent to show for it.

So I did not re-accept my contract with my previous employer.

As the summer days grew on, I kept failing to reach a new contract with a full time theatre; and it was looking more and more likely that I would have to see if my position was still unfilled at my old job.  (sigh)  And one day out of the blue the neighbor lady came over to collect her rummage sale things and she suggested that I check on the Sentry website for a job.

I paused a second and wondered if she was nuts.  Sentry is a grocery store; but near my hometown it is also a major insurance company.  I thought that neither sounded like they really had a career path for a theatre technician.

Ah, I was wrong.  Sentry Insurance owns a theatre.  And they needed a theatre manager.  And after a long interview process of many candidates, I am the chosen successor for the 'Theatre Manager' position.

My very own theatre, mwa hahahah!

I work 30 minutes from home.  Not 1200 or 2000 miles.... 30 minutes.  It's.... amazing!

So, that's what I have been up to.  That and scads of knitting.  Oh, and Hat Attack.  Dear goodness.  So much catch up blogging to do!

Yarn Recycling Day

Ah, lovely lazy weekends.

Since I have been bit heavily by the destash bug, I have also been going through my yarn.  I feel the need to ball up, tidy up and categorize everything.  And with that, I have been frogging some very old projects I will never finish or wear in order to reclaim the yarn.  

Mmmm, strawberry flavored wool.  This was at one point going to be a crocheted sweater; but I figured out that I didn't quite have enough yarn for the pattern I wanted to make.  So it sat in a box all through grad school and then sat for two more years until I finally found it and thought "gee, this is nice wool"

Besides, I figure that knitting takes less yarn than crocheting does, so I still have enough yarn for a ~knit~ sweater!

And so it was frogged.  And balled.  And turned into a lovely hank of crinkley yarn.



I even had help through this whole process!  See?  This is Heidi.  She thinks I cannot see her...


Oh... but the temptation was too great.  I see you, Heidi...  >.>  <.<


I had five hanks to be dipped in hot water, relaxed and then hung to dry.  Several move un-crocheted skeins that could simply be balled and stored.



After all that work, my assistant was pooped.  

I'm sort of jealous that this old cat still has the flexibility to turn herself completely into a catball.  May I be as supple when I am her age.




Until then, I'll content myself with the fact that I now have a sweater's worth of wool all fresh and waiting for me!

Cats in the Slammer

(with all due respect to "Cops"...  eh, who am I kidding.  I'm making fun of it.)  

Bad cats, bad cats, what'cha gonna do?  What'cha gonna do when the come for you...


To be fair these are not bad cats.  They are simply feral rescues.  For years and years my parents had barn cats in the, well, barn.  But as the number of cows dwindled the number of cats grew.  So we started taking in kittens (which might account for the unusually high number of housecats our family has) and finally my mother decided that enough was enough.  She was going to livetrap all the feral cats.  


We finally live trapped the last of the feral mothers from the barn; tranquilized them, got them taken to the vet for shots and fixings; and now they are enjoying a lovely day in the sun.  We set up a place for them to live indoors, with an outdoor cage.  Now they pass thier time away as healthy, lazy cats.  This is a Saint Bernard pen that is rigged up through a basement cat door, for some fun in the sun.  Or shade as the case may be in the pictures.  I just like how Suzy (the little black cat) is looking up so woefully, as if to say 'nobody knows the trouble I've seen...'

Woe be to the chipmunk who runs through the bars.

Round and Round

(and round and round and round and round....)

I find it a theme of my projects lately that I start them "because the yarn was there"



No, really.  It's the yarn's fault.  It lays in the boxes and tells me to make things.  I erase all responsibility.  

So let's start with the yarn.  Red Heart Symphony.  It's 100% faux mohair.  As faux as mo goes.  Acrylic, all of it.  I found it within my stash - the old stash (yes, I have stash stored away in separate places, like vintages.  And when I dig it out I find some surprising things.  This was one of them.)  I took it out and looked at the skein and thought 'what the hell is this?'

     What the hell indeed?  It was... well, it was furry.  Not Fun Fur furry.  Just furry.  

What the hell do you do with furry?  You type "Red Heart Symphony" into Ravelry and click on 'pattern ideas.'  That's what you do.  God Bless Ravelry.

Anyways, one of the patterns that showed up was the "Portland Pullover" from Interweave Knits.  I have always thought it was an attractive pattern; and the fact that it's modeled on that cute redhead model IK used for so many years didn't hurt.  The ravelers said it was a fast, easy and nice to wear.  I said 'sold!'

I cast it on a few days before my mother fell off the garage roof, and I ended up spending hours knitting the sweater body in the ER waiting room.  There are some times where completely mindless circular knitting (19 inches of it...) is most welcome.

I did not knit the sleeves flat.  I mean a circular body with a circular yoke and flat sleeves?  Please.  I knit them on a 16" circ.  Yaaay!

I'm not fond of funnel necks, and I will almost certainly wear a button down or turtleneck underneath it; so I bound it off earlier, and shored it up with a single crochet border and kitchenered the armpit seams.

Since Wisconsin is cold lately, I got to get some lovely outdoor pictures.  Mmm, fuzzy sweater.  Fauxmo it may be, but it's delightfully soft and light.