Journeys(-als) and Bullet Points

My brain's a little scattered this week, so rather than trying to be my usual witty self, I'm going to make life simple and just use bullet points for everything.

- John and I celebrated our 10 year together-ness anniversary on the 19th. We had a super hot date night of sitting in bed and watching the Lord of the Rings extended edition on blu-ray. We didn't make a big fuss about it on social media. It was perfect.

- For his present, I made him a leather bound journal. And then I made a shit ton more. Flood of pictures incoming:

John's. Funny enough, I worked on the damn thing right under his nose. He never figured it out.

One for me, complete with pocket. Used an old earring to decorate the clasp.

A mini one for Mr. Weber complete with removable booklets. Once he's filled it up, I can make him a replacement filler.

A commission from my middle sister for her best friend's birthday. This one isn't real leather, but I still like how it came out.

I also did a travel journal for Renee, but forgot to snap some pictures.

- Worked on SECRET PROJECT M-1-50.

-Finally brought my dresser in from the garage, and promptly filled it with my entire stash.

Well.......

...Most of the stash.

- Got a lovely gift from Renee! And took some cute pictures of the hubs and I when she had to step away for a moment.

- Got to hang out with Vi, Sarah, and Ellen at Harps and Thistles one day. Bought some rose colored lace yarn that I'm super excited about.

- First shipment from my Madeline Tosh yarn club came in.

It's....
well.....
ugly.

Maybe I shouldn't say ugly. But it's certainly not my cup of tea. Which really sucks because the yarn itself is AMAZINGLY soft and squishy.

Willing to let it go for $20 each, or both for $37, plus shipping. Being completely serious here. Someone else can have it... (USA inquiries only, please. Don't much feel like dealing with customs.)

- Seems that I'm having a streak of bad luck with yarn. Some other stuff I ordered came in today and the color is radically different from what was shown, but the owner won't do exchanges based on color alone. I currently have it in the dye pot, hoping to make it into something useable.

If the Tosh doesn't sell, that's where it's heading, too.

- Remember my d20 mug that Bethany bought me? It's got a home now.

- And finally, some random pet pictures, because internet tax.

- Hope you all have a better week than what I seem to be.

Poor Quality Pictures

So.

It's cold outside.

Like really cold.

At least, it was yesterday. And I refuse to look at the weather report today.

And I'm currently all snuggled up in my bed. Which means that you'll just have to deal with my makeshift backdrop and bad lighting.

Because I straight up refuse to put pants on today.

First off, thanks to anyone who voted in the contest. The winner will be revealed in April at the next trunk show. In the meantime, I'm going to pretend to not be nervous and try to put the thoughts aside.

The monthly pj party was on the 5th. I ended up going with Vi and Caitlin, which was amazing fun. Sarah, sadly, wasn't there due to another commitment. If anyone asks, I moped about the shop, lamenting her absence.

I had planned on giving John my debit card before I went in to the shop to prevent me from buying anything (a feat I've never been able to achieve. Seriously, there hasn't been a time I've gone to the shop and not purchased something.), but then I got nervous. What if there was an emergency and I had to have my card? So, I refused to give it up and was good for the entire night.

I can hear you laughing from here.

I really did TRY to be good! There was a skein of Three Irish Girls in a beautiful colorway called Winter Birch. Vi and Caitlin did their damndest to talk me into it. I challenged them to spell out my full name using only the letters on the tag and then I might consider breaking my resolve and buying it.

Of course, they did it in a heartbeat. I really didn't want to spend that much on one skein that night, so I told them I really honestly and truly could not buy it that night.

So, Caitlin grabbed it out of my hands and tossed it into her pile.

Decided on the Debaser shawlette pattern for it.

I can't stand people being nice to me, so I'm giving her the extra skein of TIG Blackberry Cobbler that I have.

So, since I had to buy something now so I didn't look like an ass, I had resolved to satisfying my addiction by just purchasing the one skein of Malabrigo sock yarn that I had in reserve. I'd be out of there with only spending $20.

Problem was, Cindy couldn't find it.

So, I messaged Sarah and asked her where she had put it. She then confessed something to me. That beautiful, beautiful woman had bought it out from under me to knit me a pair of custom fit socks.

Let me say that again. She's knitting me CUSTOM. FIT. SOCKS.

I'm sorry, John. I'm leaving you for Sarah. I'm easily swayed by the promise of easy access to wool and (one more time) CUSTOM KNIT SOCKS!

Custom knit socks and a skein of TIG gifted to me.

AND Vi made me a mug cozy! IT'S SO AWESOME!

I have to add a button and weave in the ends, but I can't wait to wrap this around one of my favorite mugs.

Yarn karma is real, my friends.

I ended up deciding to buy three skeins of Malabrigo baby merino, which is a lace weight yarn. Caitlin was knitting a shawl with it at the party and I kept petting it.

The color is called Cypress. It looks entirely black here, but it actually has blue and blue-green in it.

Told you, terrible photos. This one has the flash on so you can just see the color in it.

I wanted to keep the yarn karma going, I bought Vi a skein of one of the new Downton Abbey yarns. Don't remember which one, all I know is that it was purple and sparkly.

I've been working pretty steadily on Vi's Tardis shawl. I'm through the main body and decorative break and have finally started the Tardis chart.

It pretty much just looks like a giant blue blob, but blocking will work it's magic and turn it into something beautiful.

I also delved into one of my other hobbies: painting RPG miniatures. I had purchased a few things from Reaper, including a clockwork dragon.

Here's how he came out.

I've named him Wrenchester (Wrench? Get it?) and he is my most precious of babies. I knew I wanted to make him into a display piece for our mantle and began the hunt for something to house him in. We'll get to that in a minute, since we have to do this thing in chronological order, right?

So, this past Saturday we made a trip up to Harps and Thistles so Sarah could measure me for my socks. I brought my lovely Vi along with me and sent Alex and John packing. Vi and I ended up walking down to Flurry's for lunch.

Can I just tell you how delicious my lunch was?

Chicken and chorizo quesadilla with a side of homemade mac and cheese. Frickin' yum!

We then went back and hung out with Sarah. I also had to buy a couple of skeins of Malabrigo sock to make my mom's birthday present.

No spoilers, but isn't this pretty?

More yarn karma came when Vi told me to pick out something as a thank you gift. I couldn't pass up another skein of Malabrigo sock, this time in the Turner colorway.

It's a gorgeous green color. But my camera says it looks like this.

Which is so wildly inaccurate that it's funny.

Taken with flash, it looks a bit closer to the true color.

Sunday, I had a Gal-intine's Day out with my lovely Bethany! We met up for lunch and then went to the Big Three craft stores (Michael's, JoAnn's, and Pat Catan's). I spent way more money than I probably should have, but damnit if I didn't have fun doing it.

We also stopped at the new Goodwill outlet and I found an amazing deal. I've been looking for area rugs for our bedroom and living room. I ended up finding two 5x7 foot rugs for $7 each!

A bit of a scrub and they'll work beautifully.

I also somehow managed to buy 9 pounds of throw pillows, but let's gloss over that.

I want to talk about my REALLY COOL THING THAT I BOUGHT!

So, looking for a house for Wrenchester, right? My thinking is some sort of glass cloche.

Until I spotted this.

Isn't it pretty? The only problem was the color. It was little too clean and silver for my rusty heart.

But with a little copper spray paint...

And some antiquing techniques with acrylic paint...

Wrenchester has himself a lovely little abode.

I still need to mount him on a small base so he's properly framed in the glass.

Look at that rusty bit of Steampunky goodness!

He's right at home here.

At least until it's time to kick some player ass in the next D&D campaign...

Vote for Bees!

It's never a good thing when I discover a new craft. I tend to throw myself (and a whole lot of money) into it. It's especially not good when you're trying to get hella lot of knitting done by a deadline. But I had been interested in finding something to do with my hands when I can't knit (thanks, shoulder!), but they're still itchy to do something. 

Well, I found something.

Enter zen tangles.

I started with this book and a pack of prismacolor fine pens.

With this particular book, you are given animal outlines with a grid-like pattern overlaying it. You fill in the grid with all sorts of little doodles, patterns, and drawings. 

It's easy to just zone out and draw. I quickly finished my first project and decided to give it to Al.

I've become addicted and now have a whole case full of pens in all sorts of colors.

You can see here that I've already started on my next one. The body and head will all be one pattern, while the horns will be another.

I've also been avoiding my knitting responsibilities by reading. I've got four I'm working on at the moment.

I'm currently working on The Devious Dr. Jekyll by Viola Carr, The Thirteenth House by Sharon Shinn (one of my absolute favorite series!), and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I haven't actually started A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan yet, but it looks amazing.

And speaking of books, John's decided to read a book every month this year. He's then going to write his thoughts up and post them to Tumblr. His first book was Sacred Cows by Seth Andrews. If you'd like you can check out his write up HERE!

Lest you think me completely out of love with my knitting, I did manage a trip up to Harps and Thistles on Tuesday of last week to see my love, Sarah. My darling Vi accompanied me and hung out a while with us. 

I was very good and didn't buy much.

Only a couple of skeins of Rios. 

Just two.

Of each color.

What?

I also started on Vi's TARDIS shawl. I intended to do Bigger on the Inside, but I didn't relish the thought of picking up 300+ stitches. I also am a huge fan of triangular shaped shawls, so I decided to improvise.

For the main body of the shawl, I wanted something lacy, but easy to memorize. I needed something that's easy to take with me. So I decided to use the body section of Easy as Pie.

I'll be using the TARDIS chart from Bigger on the Inside, then, for the bottom edge of the shawl.

I've got a decent start on it. The plan is to have it done in two weeks. I have high hopes because it really is easy knitting.

I haven't really gotten much further on Caitlin's shawl. I was seduced by the Dream Smooshy.

That and I'm just not happy with how it's coming out. I may frog it and just improvise a pattern again.

I know that there's an alternate chart for Bigger on the Inside with Daleks instead. Mayhaps that?

This past Saturday, John and I also got to do something we've been looking forward to for quite a while. We had dinner with Sarah and Chris.

Do I really need to tell you how much fun we had?

I'm pretty sure that John has a bro-crush on Chris.

We're already planning on having them down here sometime.

I know I cemented our friendship (as well as Cindy's) by bringing an offering of peanut butter cream pie.

So, do you guys remember this picture?

It's currently entered in a contest hosted by Harps & Thistles. If my picture wins, it will be used as the inspiration for the next Three Irish Girls colorway. Plus, I get free yarn and naming rights.

I'm also wanting to set something up where a donation would be made to the local Bee Keeper's Association.

Helping bees, getting me yarn.... it's a heap of good!

I would really appreciate it if you could take a moment and give me a vote. The contest ends tomorrow, February 3rd. So please vote soon!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

Thanks in advance for your help!

Now, back to mindless knitting and endless enjoyment of Jane Austen-esque films.

Holy hell, I've turned into a monster.