Let's Get Funky-a

Ten days.

Ten. Days.

Ten. F*cking. DAYS!

That, my friends, is exactly how long it took me to knit Funkia.

Yeah, I can't believe it myself.

But here it is.

It blocked out to a whopping 88 inch wingspan with a 40 inch spine. I was honestly afraid I was going to run out of yarn.

Unfortunately, I think my knitting career is over. I'm never going to be able to top this.

Better to retire while I'm still on top, right?

Alas, Christmas is approaching fast, so I dove right back in to knitting.

Presenting present number four!

Just a simple stockinette hat with a 2x1 ribbed brim. It's also my very first knit hat. Yarn is Three Irish Girls Springvale Worsted in Blackberry Cobbler. 

Here's a better picture of the colors.

John actually liked the hat so much he finally agreed to let me knit him one. So, we traipsed up to Harps and Thistles today for Small Business Saturday. He picked out some TIG in Driftwood initially, but we also found some Dream Classy in Shiny Moss. My poor, indecisive husband couldn't choose, so he's getting two hats.

We've been on the go since last Friday, so I think it's time to just go chill out now with some Steam Powered Giraffe and working on a quick, fun project.

Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving!

Happiness and Elation (Part Two)

Last Friday afternoon saw John sitting in a chair, taking his sadness out on some dragons in Skyrim and me heading off to Canton with Emily to get cat food.

After losing Leon that morning, I was in no mood to go out anywhere. But grandma insisted.

Well, you don't send an emotionally compromised person to a pet store.

I got the cat food...

And also brought home a 13 year old tuxedo cat that we named Oscar.

Oh, yeah. He's going to fit in quite nicely.

Sadness and Desperation (Part One)

Note: Rather than trying to combine my whole weekend into one post, I'm breaking it up into two parts. This gives people the chance to skip the sad parts and non-knitting related post.

I had an absolutely terrible Friday. We had to have our precious old man cat, Leon, put to sleep. He was somewhere above the age of 14 and on the decline. We knew it would be happening sooner rather than later, but I still wasn't prepared.

We had hoped that he would pass peacefully at home, but when we woke up Friday, he had completely lost control of his bowels and was having trouble breathing. I couldn't let him suffer, so we made the decision to take him to the vet and have him euthanized.

John, that wonderful, wonderful man, did not make me go. He bravely went with just my step-dad. They stayed in the room with Leon as he passed and all in all, said it was as painless and peaceful as possible.

For those of you who think that I am a coward for not going, I still have nightmares from when I went with my mom to have our lab put down. And that was nearly a decade ago. It's bad enough that I can only currently remember Leon as the absolute wreck he was Friday morning. Watching him die would have been even worse.

But before they took him, I warmed his blanket in the dryer so he wouldn't be cold on the trip. I swaddled him in it and held him close to me, whispering about how much I loved him, how great of a cat he was, and how much I was going to miss him.

We had wanted to get him cremated, but $150 wasn't something we could afford on top of the vet cost. We had no where at our home to bury him and were at a loss of what to do. My grandma then offered that we could bury him at her house under the lilac tree.

I thought it was perfect. My grandparent's house has always been one of my safe places. It's only three streets over from our house. We could go visit him whenever we needed to. I also loved the thought that as he decomposes, he'll nourish the tree. Every spring, we'll be able to see him in those beautiful purple blooms.

I cried and cried and cried while they were gone. I would stop for a bit, think I was okay, then think about him and start all over again.

Leon had lived with us most of his life. He went through 6 moves, most of those with John and I, and always settled in so nicely. He had the loudest purr of any cat I've ever met. In his older age, he earned the nickname of grumpy old man cat. If one of the other cats or dogs annoyed him, he would meow and then rapidly smack them on top of the head with his paw.

He had always been a fat cat. We loved how his stomach swayed when he ran off anywhere. It was such a funny way of running, too. I don't even know how to describe it.

Once John got home, we took a shower, trying anything to relax a bit.

It's funny, but I realize that John and I's relationship has always revolved around showers. Whenever we needed to talk about something emotionally heavy, it's when one of us is in the shower. When we lived with my family, it was a way to get away from everyone else and just have a couple of minutes to ourselves to talk. Whenever one of us is sick, the other insists on a shower, complete with warmed towels and company to make sure they don't slip and fall.

Whenever we lose someone, we always take a shower together.

It feels like we are trying to wash away the hurt and sadness.

So, we took our shower, held each other and cried.

When we were done, the sadness was still there, but it didn't hurt quite so much.

Goodbye, my faithful friend, my purring companion, my grumpy old man, my Bubbers.

Where ART thou?

So, you'll notice a distinct lack of an art museum post from last week.

I know, I know. I promised.

But a madness has descended upon me. A black void of knitting that consumed my whole soul for the past five days. And will probably continue to do so for the next 9 days.

It all started because John's 10 year class reunion was coming up. I hate social events on principle, but this one I especially don't want to go to. Ten years out of school and most of these people have good careers, good income, and a couple of kids. I can't help but feel like an utter failure in comparison. We struggle to make ends meet, our house is an absolute disaster (despite my Better Homes and Garden attitude on here), and we've got no kids to call our own.

Aren't you also supposed to become more attractive by the first reunion? For John, that's no problem. He's no longer the awkward and gangly guy he was in high school. He carries himself with a lot more confidence. And if I may be so bold to claim, he's become f*cking hot.

I, on the other hand, have not aged well at all. I have no career and am an utter hermit. I'm afraid someone's going to question why John's dragging my deadbeat, ugly ogre ass around.

On top of all that, one of my worst high school bullies was in John's graduating class. I don't particularly feel like seeing her.

But John said we had to go because he'd feel awkward if we didn't, seeing as the event is being held at the restaurant down the road. And I do mean right down the road. I can stand on my front porch and see the place.

So, I figured I'd use my reluctance and John's utter devotion to always making me happy to my advantage and get a pretty new dress out of it. For the record, I picked one that wasn't terribly expensive, can be used for more than one occasion, and waited for it to be on sale. I ended up picking out this dress from ModCloth.

And then, the wheels started turning.

You see, that dress is rather plain. I'd have to wear a shawl or something with it to dress it up a bit. But all of the shawls I already have would clash horribly with it, are too dark, or just plain boring.

So, despite the fact that I'm in the middle of my Christmas knitting frenzy, I decided that I would have enough time to knit a shawl. In fingering weight. In two weeks.

Yeah.

I tried to get a couple of my friends to talk me out of it, and for the record, Caitlin really did try. As did John. But Morgan just encouraged me, the foul temptress.

I envisioned something with an all-over lace pattern and that I wanted to fulfill a dream of mine of owning an ivory colored lace shawl. And let's be honest, an ivory color is going to pop like crazy against that dress. I decided to use some stash yarn I already had on hand (one point in my favor!) for this. I've dabbled in handpainting yarn and still had some Knit Pick's Bare Palette in storage. Two hanks to be exact.

Figuring that 880 yards should be more than enough for any pattern that I picked out, I headed for my ravelry favorites. I ended up falling in love with Funkia by Mia Rinde. It was going to be perfect. An all over lace pattern, beautiful leaf motifs, and even some little tiny leaves popping out at the shoulders! Not to mention that the non-leaf lace pattern really does remind me of the flowers on the hosta plant, which the pattern is named for.

So, with callous disregard to the frantic attempts to make me see sense, the fact that my last fingering weight shawl took over a year to make (it was my first one!), Dragonscale took a month, and I still had so many Christmas presents in front of me, I wound up my yarn and cast on.

This is the part where you expect me to talk about the utter failure, right? The pattern was too hard to work out, the yarn was infested with moths, my hand was cut off in a jousting accident, or some other calamity, right?

Well, to my absolute surprise and delight, my shawl is actually coming along quite wonderfully.

Isn't it just breathtaking? It's just working up so beautifully. And so fast! I don't know if it's because I'm so enamored with it which makes it effortless, or maybe the wool gods are just smiling upon me, but I don't think I've ever knit so fast in my life.

As of today, I have 94 rows done of the pattern. There are 141 before bind off, with the option of repeating the 4th chart (16 rows) to enlarge the shawl. Which I will probably do, because I love huge shawls.

I finished the second chart, which was the largest, last night. I'm, against all odds, actually on track of getting this done on time. And I do believe I'll actually be able to get the rest of my Christmas presents done, too.

I even took the time to make myself some pretty stitch markers to use with the shawl. It deserved pretty stitch markers.

Little bees to fly around in my leaves.

I did take a bit of a break yesterday and sort the stash. And by a bit of a break, I mean it took the better part of 6 hours to do.

This is the stash. Well, the stash that I'm keeping. There are currently 2 Joann's bags, a tub, and a big rubbermaid container filled with yarn that need to go away.

The rest got sorted into a chest and many, MANY baskets. I even sorted it all by weight to make my life easier.

And I actually only found one basket's worth of WIP's! See, I'm not a total knitting failure!

I also went back to Cleveland on Saturday with John and Vi to meet up with a couple of other friends (hi, Mikayla and Kayla!) at a Tabletop Cafe. Which was incredibly fun! We played The Resistance and Tokiado before Mikayla and I slipped out to check out a yarn shop that was only 20 minutes down the road.

I was good and just bought a couple of their $2 clearance balls and a skein of Rowan Worsted for a hat I want to make.

When we got back to the cafe, Mikayla headed back home and the rest of us played a round of King of Tokyo. Which I actually won!

And then I promptly ruined the entire evening by spilling the remnants of John's tea all over the game, causing me to stress myself into a terrible stutter.

Such is my life.

All in all though, we had a lovely day and I'm looking forward to heading back there soon!

Well, I suppose I need to dive back in to my knitting now, and completely ignore the fact that I have to get ready for our 3rd D&D session this Saturday.

I don't see any way this could possibly go wrong.

Busy, Busy, Busy

This past weekend was nothing but a whirlwind of going places, doing things, and not getting a single moment to relax. I think I managed to maybe get 5 rows done on the Christmas triangle scarf.

Friday night was Harps and Thistles' monthly pajama party. When we drove past the shop on the way to the parking lot, Beaverly decided to come out and wreak havoc when I saw how many people were inside. I wanted to desperately to leave. I was doing everything in my power to convince John to just take me home. He talked me through it, for which I am forever grateful, and walked me inside. As embarrassing it is to admit, I clung on to his hand like a child.

Anxiety is so much fun, people.

I ended up having a lovely time, just as John knew I would. And I even came home with a couple of new beauties. Even though the party was supposed to be about getting your knitting done, I spent more time talking to people than actually knitting. I managed to get a whopping 2 rows done on my scarf. That's just downright sad.

I hid in the back by the snack table, figuring that people could come over to me to socialize. On top of that, I didn't want to try and drag a chair through the crowd to sit by Sarah.

It was nice sitting at the table because I could sit my pattern right beside me rather than constantly having to reach to the floor for it.

Some of the snacks. You can see my bowl and chart keeper in the back. As well as a whole wall of Three Irish Girls. Not good, people. Not good.

My triangle scarf that barely got touched, the poor thing. And I decided to be all fancy and bring along one of my beautiful bowls.

I wanted to find some yarn to make mittens for my mother-in-law for Christmas, and ended up coming home with this.

I apologize for the dismal pictures. I took these the other evening when I remembered that I needed to. The sun was setting fast. I would retake them, but it's a wet and miserable sort of day. I don't think they'll turn out much better.

Anyway, this yarn is actually a very pretty green heather. I wanted something that was cheerful, but wouldn't show dirt easily.

I also fell in love with a kit that Harps and Thistles had on display using some of their first Three Irish Girls custom colorway. I didn't care much for the pattern, though, and bought the components separately.

Isn't it beautiful? I think I'm going to do this pattern with it. This is the Adorn Sock base, by the way.

This is the shawl pin that was in the kit. It's so beautiful and lovely. I used it with my dragonscale shawl on Saturday and was so thrilled that I didn't have to spend the whole day fussing with keeping my shawl on my shoulders.

I also picked up this skein of Adorn Sock. I'd been eyeing it for a few weeks, and John foolishly left me alone at the shop. I have no control when it comes to yarn, people. I walk into a shop, a black veil covers me and I walk out later with arms full of beautiful fiber, not quite remembering picking up so much.

Maybe I'm multi-classing as a warlock and my patron demon has a thing for merino.

Saturday, John and I took our dear friend, Vi, up to the Cleveland Museum of Art. We stopped at Harps and Thistles on the way, though, because I forgot to get this.

More Three Irish Girls, this time in Springvale Worsted. It's the Blackberry Cobbler colorway. I'm planning on some Christmas presents with it, but I'm not sure if the intended recipient reads my blog, so you'll just have to see what it becomes later.

I have so many pictures from the museum that I've decided to make it an entirely separate post later this week. For now, I'll just say that we had an absolutely lovely time.

Sunday was a birthday party for my grandpa's brother. I didn't take too many pictures, but here's one of grandpa and Uncle Billy together. Grandpa is on the left.

They ended up sending me home with an almost entirely full vegetable tray, which is pretty damn awesome. My rats are especially happy.

And yesterday, Em (the middle sister, for those who may not know) and I went shopping. John and I hadn't had a chance to pick up essentials for the house over the weekend, for some reason, so I bullied Emmy into going with me.

As bribery, I took her to Books-A-Million. I thought I'd be good and just look for a stitch dictionary (which I did find) and maybe look for something for John. Well, I ended up with the stitch dictionary, Prudence by Gail Carriger, and the first two books in a new series called the Clockwork Daggers by Beth Cato. Apparently, my demon patron also has a thing for Steampunk-inspired fiction.

Lest you think that poor John didn't get anything special, I did buy him King of Tokyo and Forbidden Island to add to our ever-growing board game collection.

In fact, we played King of Tokyo last night. I was two points away from winning when my stupid bloody husband offed me and took the game.

I'm sure some of you are wondering how the Christmas knitting is coming along....

But first, can we just agree the whole red cup debacle is just frippin stupid? I mean, FSM forbid that Starbucks has a more simple cup design this year! Conservative Christians are starting the war on Christmas a little early this year. I mean, can we get through Thanksgiving first?

Seriously. though, get over yourselves.

Okay, so, Christmas knitting. Well, I only managed to get one and a half presents done over the week.

Izzy's gloves are done. And I once again remembered why I hate working with acrylic. *shudder*

I also managed to get one glove done for one of my commission projects. This took me bloody forever because I had to completely re-work the pattern. I think I've got it now, though, and am hoping to breeze through the second one today.

My anxiety is on the brink of going into overdrive because one present a week is just not going to cut it. On top of that, presents keep getting added to my list. Gift cards are starting to look like a better and better option.

Wooly gods, watchers of all crafters, give me strength to make it through this holiday season.

Where did October go?

Fifty-two days left and I have a grand total of one project done. Things don't seem to be looking good for my timeline.

I've already made sacrifices to the project list in order to keep myself on track. The three shawls have been stricken from the list. Instead, I'll be making another pair of mittens, a triangle scarf, and another casserole carrier. Smaller projects = faster knitting and crafting, right?

I've already started the scarf.

This is Three Irish Girls Felicity in Terra Firma. And holy sheep balls, I love this yarn! It's amazingly soft to work with. And the shine from the silk! 

That's why I have another ball of it in a different color being knit into a triangle scarf for myself.

I have visions of all of the ladies at my family party having something knit to wear, and I need something for myself, too, right?

I mean, it is a worsted weight yarn. How long could it take?

Faith's mitts are finished except for weaving in the ends. I figured I'd do all of that at the last minute to keep me from giving the gifts early. I'm notoriously bad about that.

I also took some time last week to make a birthday gift for a dear friend, Taylor, who is turning 30. His wife, Caitlin, threw him a surprise party on Halloween. It also just so happens that Caitlin is my friend who works at Flaming Ice Cube, my second favorite yarn shop in the world. 

John and I left early enough that I could stop in quickly to purchase a bigger magnetic chart keeper and say hi to Ellie, Caitlin's co-worker and our other friend. I also decided to gift Ellie my skein of TIG yarn that I had planned on using for John's cowl. He had no interest whatsoever in ever wearing one, so that beautiful yarn needed to be given to someone more worthy than my ungrateful spouse. It was pure coincidence that Ellie's birthday is coming up soon.

And lest you think that I would be cruel enough to give one knitter precious yarn and not the other, Caitlin got the matching skein of TIG that I was going to use for a cowl for myself. With everything else going on and my already (alarmingly) large stash, I knew that this poor skein would be lost amongst all of my other planned projects. I have no doubt that it is now with the knitter that will make it into something special and lovely, like it deserves.

Here's my new, super fancy chart keeper.

Look at it! It's so fancy and awesome and it even comes with a pocket and a pen! I love it so much already!

And I not only managed to find my nifty chart keeper, but also the yarn to make Al's fingerless mitts.

She's been bugging me for forever to find some of the HiKoo color changing yarn in blue. I was planning on ordering it from Jimmy Bean's, but Flaming Ice Cube had gotten some in stock since the last time I visited. Yay for supporting my favorite places!

Here's what it looks like normally.

And what it changes into. And it happens so fast! 

This yarn is seriously bloody cool.

The plan is to make the body of the mitts out of this red Simplicity from HiKoo.

And add a stranded heart on the top in the Abracadabra.

These also managed to jump into my arms.

How could I say no? And the picture doesn't even do them justice! There's some lovely little spots of the lightest, silvery blue running through it like a stream. I didn't even look at the tag. Just grabbed them and carried them lovingly to the counter, completely and blissfully unaware of the horror that was written on it.

Yes, my friends, I made the mistake of looking at the name of the colorway yesterday. These beautiful, lovely skeins are named... Camo.

*shudder* 

A foul name that should only be reserved for the cheap stuff like RHSS! Not for the beautiful merino that is in my hands! Camo invokes images of the local rednecks crashing through the woods, shooting anything that moves.

I refuse to let that be the legacy of this yarn, so I'm sorry, Manos Del Uruguay, I'm renaming these two special skeins. They'll be known as Northern Forest from here on out. Let it invoke images of a beautiful forest filled with all kinds of flora and fauna, a peaceful stream lazily passing through. Much better, yes?

In other crafting news, I, in a surprising turn of events, successfully taught Renee and my new soul sister, Sydney, how to bind their own books and journals. I didn't swear too much, or even try and do it all myself. I shocked even myself.

And we even had useable journals at the end of it!

Here's what we made.

Mine, Renee's, and then Sydney's.

For Sydney's front and end pages, she used two different papers.

 

She even glued on a pen holder. And see that adorable little sticker in the corner?

Look at those adorable little felt owls! The branch I cut out for her out of handmade paper.

Here's a close up of Renee's cover.

She used some lovely crocheted flowers, which she glued some vintage buttons on to, along with some stickers to make it so absolutely beautiful!

Renee used this beautiful script paper for her end pages.

They also chose to wrap their signatures in different papers. I forgot to get pictures, though.

And lastly, here's mine. Please excuse the atrocious lighting. It was late at night.

The corners I had purchased from JoAnn's in the scrapbooking section. They have a whole assortment of Steampunk/Victorian things right now. Just make sure you take coupons with you! They aren't cheap!

The flowers were in Renee's craft stash and she graciously gifted them to me. They really are absolutely perfect!

I fell in love with this houndstooth paper and knew I had to use it for my endpages. Unfortunately, I didn't make them quite as long as I needed to. Plus, there was a red starburst pattern in the corner of the paper. So in an effort to mask all of that, I cut all of these little advertisements out from a piece of scrapbook paper. The tag at the top was one Renee had tea stained. I added the writing to it.

The back cover features a pocket made out of the same handmade paper, only this time in black. I added a yellow rose I had cut out from a different piece of paper, plus some lace, once again from Renee's immense stash of craft supplies. Seriously, I aspire to have such a large and beautiful collection at my disposal someday!

I've become so enchanted by bookbinding that I went out yesterday and just so happened to bring all of this home with me.

The books of paper actually aren't paper at all! They're all plastic/paper lined fabric! Which is what you need for book cloths. And book cloths are not cheap. Sure, I'm going to have to make smaller books, but 28 book cloths for a fraction of the price is pretty damn good.

Here are just a few examples of what I have to work with now.

This one is a burlap-esque fabric.

As is this one.

But these two feel like linen.

Now, for anyone who does scrapbooking or other paper crafts, you're mentally adding this up, aren't you? And that price is shocking, isn't it?

Well, rest assured, that's not how much I spent. 

Would you believe me if I told you that I got all of this for $30?

It's my super power, being able to find deals anywhere. And, like Wil Wheaton's dice rolls, no one believes you until they see it in action.

Still don't believe me? Well, I'll show you another example.

We had to stop in at PetsMart yesterday to get cat and rat food. I stumbled upon their clearance dog clothes and found this adorable shirt for Chloe.

It started at $12, but was on clearance for $4.87. I figured that was worth the cost to make her look adorable.

The shirt rang up at $2.97. Cool!

But then the cashier called a manager over. Apparently, the particular shirt I had picked out was reduced a further 75%. In the end, I paid $.74 for it.

Here's the receipt. 

I told you, it's a superpower. And I promise to only use it for good.

And here's a picture of my adorable mutt, wearing her new outfit.

She loves it, I promise.