Ladybugs & Yarn

Lookie at these adorable little stitch markers:

They’re a birthday present from the lovely Piglottie, and look, look, they even match the colours of my furry family! There’s black Shadow, black-and-white Bonsai, brown Pirate, orange Stevie, and brown-tabby Cookie. Aren’t they precious?

Also in the parcel was this awesome handmade card. Stevie’s already tried to lick it, but it’s now up on the top shelf of my computer desk, where he cannot reach.

This is the Eva 4ply I picked up during last weekend’s Posh Yarn sale. It’s 45% cashmere and 55% silk, and I’ve started a simple but pretty razor shell scarf to wear to dinner next week on my birthday. I’m knitting it in two halves and grafting it together, and I’m going to hang teardrop-shaped beads from each of the scallops on the end. It’d likely be getting knit faster if I didn’t have to stop and stroke it after every second row. Mmm.

Pattern: My own; I plan to write it up eventually
Yarn: KnitPicks Salishan in Cedar
Needles: 4.0mm DPNs

I finished these at least a month ago and forgot to post them here. Oops. They’re knit from a wool/cotton blend that adds just a touch of warmth, great for those cool spring mornings I know we have coming. The lace pattern is Falling Leaves from Vogue’s Stitchionary I, and although the thickness of the yarn didn’t allow for many pattern repeats, I’m quite pleased with how they turned out. Although I’m still a two-circs kind of girl, I have to admit that the structure of the DPNs did help while working the thumb.

Pattern: Odessa from MagKnits
Yarn: Natural Dye Studio alpaca/merino DK in Violet Ice
Needles: 3.5mm & 4mm

It’s an Odessa for a small person! By knitting it on the needles called for in the pattern instead of using 4mm & 4.5mm to get gauge, it’s the perfect size for a friend’s young daughter. I love this pattern–it’s super-easy but looks lovely, and quick but satisfying.

I have enough of the yarn left to make a proper-sized one for me. It’ll be beaded, though, with little pearls.

I contracted the plague or something from a Chinese buffet over the weekend; the misery’s mostly over, though, and I even had a parcel containing my shiny new yarn swift waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday. It’s handmade, from oak, and spins perfectly–I love it.

Someone tell me to resist the siren song of the yarn, please. I keep eyeing this gorgeous colourway (Romance) of cashmere/silk DK at Posh Yarns; it’s miraculously not sold out, but I’ve already gotten a skein of this prettiness and I shouldn’t be looking at more.

It’s snowing. Hmmph. Actually, I love snow, and I can’t dislike it while it’s falling, especially without wind. When it’s just cold, though, and when the streets are mushy and the sky’s just an expanse of mottled grey, I get a little bit anxious for spring. It’s starting to turn to rain outside, now, but I took some photos this morning–there are a few more at the photoblog.

And now I have to waffle about some more personal things for a minute.

So I’m officially off Celexa. Seeing as how I had wicked “discontinuation symptoms” (benign-sounding medical term for withdrawal) that time my prescription ran out and I couldn’t get more for three days, I expected similar symptoms when switching over to Effexor, especially since I have to start at a very low dose to let my body adjust. I haven’t had any thus far, though, beyond a mild (if persistent) headache. I’m hoping that once I get to a more normal dose I don’t start to suffer from much in the way of side effects–I had some with Celexa that were a bit bothersome, although not bad enough to make me stop taking it. I’d like to be optimistic, but for now I’ll stick to idling in neutral and waiting to see how the next couple of weeks progress.

There’s Neapolitan ice cream in the freezer, and it’s calling my name.

The temptation of the Claudia’s was too strong–I now have the first Hourglass Eyelets sock on the needles. The Begonia colourway is just variegated enough to be interesting without overwhelming the lace. I had to go down a needle size because the yarn’s so squishysproingy that it knits up a bit looser than I prefer–these are the first socks I’ve ever had to knit on 2.5mm needles, as I usually get 8-8.5 spi on 3mm circs.

Have any of you visited the Natural Dye Studio’s Ebay shop? Almost a year ago I bought a couple of skeins of BFL “luxury” sock wool, and was disappointed. I didn’t like how the wool felt nor how it knitted up, and the colours were a lot less vibrant than they looked on the web. Those balls, frogged and rewound, are still in the stash. A couple of weeks ago I was surfing randomly around Ebay and ended up at their shop again, noticing that they had new alpaca/silk and alpaca/merino sock wools. Well, I decided to give the new fibres and more experienced-looking colourways a try, and the parcel arrived today.

The yarns are beautiful! The one on the left is 100g of alpaca/merino sock wool in Crocus (brighter and cheerier than in photo), and the one on the right is 100g of alpaca/merino DK in Violet Ice (more pink and blue and graypurple than in photo). I keep going back and squishing the skeins, at least the three that haven’t been wound–I couldn’t resist balling one and swatching a bit. I’m so pleased.

On a total random note, I have a really cute 50s-ish dress: wrap-style with tie, black with tiny white dots, just-below-the-knee, slightly flared, short-sleeved. I’d like to wear said cute dress, but I can’t seem, no matter where I look, to find a cute pair of red heels and a red handbag to complete the whole outfit. Yes, black would do. But red! Red.

I think I just summed up my whole life in that subject line.

The socks-that-shall-not-be-named are done, therefore I’ve started Waving Lace from Favorite Socks. I’ve only had time to do the scalloped cuff and about an inch of pattern on the first sock, so it’ll be a while yet. I’ve also restarted my blue tweed cardigan and this time I think I have the baby cable rib panels where I want them. The yarn is “on hold” for me at the LYS because I don’t know how much I’ll need–there are two bags tucked away in the stockroom for me, and I can pick up balls as I need them.

I have new knitting music, in the form of a couple of CDs of soft contemporary piano solos. Beautiful, but undistracting.

I went to sleep at 4:30 am thanks to PD James’ The Children of Men. I did like it, although I was left feeling somewhat unsatisified for reasons I can’t identify yet. Hmm. It wasn’t the premise nor most of the societal effects of what’s happened to the human race; something else didn’t sit right.

A catnap is in order this afternoon, because I managed to wake up at 7:15 am despite lack of sleep. I’d meant to spend the evening reading, but I “accidentally” frittered away a couple of hours with the Sims 2. I installed the Seasons EP, and it adds so much to the base game–it’s fantastic. Summer is closest to standard pre-EP conditions, although there are butterflies and fireflies that can be bottled, inline skating and playing catch as new sports, and fish to be caught in ponds; the fish are automatically added to a sim’s inventory and can be mounted on the wall, eaten, or given to someone with the new gift-giving interaction. Autumn sees the leaves change and drop, to be raked, played in, or just left to disappear under winter snow. And winter is great, too–the storms leave a dusting of snow on everything (even railings, which is a nice tough) and it accumulates until it’s deep enough to make snow angels, build snowmen, have snowball fights, or go ice-skating. The sims change in and out of their cold-weather gear automatically, too, when entering or exiting buildings. Spring sees everything turn green again, and it’s the best time of year to make use of the most complex new sim activity–gardening. Vegetable gardens and fruit trees can be planted and tended to and harvested, and the produce (with varying levels of quality, depending on your sim’s abilities) can be sold or eaten or put into the new juicer kitchen appliance. When it rains, there are puddles your sims can splash in, and sometimes thunder and lightning too–watch that it doesn’t burn down a tree or two. Even if you don’t make use of the new activities, the EP adds enough atmosphere and whatnot to the base game that I think it’s worth it.

While I’m on the subject of seasons, it’s been warm enough these past few days to take Samson out walking. Nothing seems to please him more than getting outside, and no matter how fast I walk, he keeps up, prancing along as fast as he can go on his short little legs. Yesterday he decided to roll in a mud puddle, so he had to have a whole bath when he came home rather than just getting him to stand in a few inches of water to clean his feet. Post-bath, exhausted little weiner mutt sacked out in the hall with a towel:

Oh, and look at this face:

I have to photospam a bit more, too, because I finally got a photo of 17-year-old Cookie not looking like he wants to eat someone:

Before I go, I have proof that I have, in fact, always been an animal person:

My first kitten, who had the uncreative name of Mittens, even though he had neither extra toes nor special markings on his feet. Hee.

And now I’m off to sit in front of the mailbox so our stupid postie can’t say she was unable to deliver again because our mailbox was “blocked” (there’s an inch of snow on the ground and we haven’t shovelled, oh the horror). I’m not planning on immediately knitting up the sock yarn I’m waiting on, but I’d like to be able to squish it, at least.

ETA: Yarn in the mail! *does dance of joy* Lookie at the gorgeousness:

Claudia’s, in Woodland Moss and Begonia. It’s so squishy and springy! The Begonia is likely going to become a pair of Sweetheart socks, and the other… well… just sort of fell into my virtual shopping cart by accident. Yeah.

So cute! Its little USB receiver is pink and lights up.

It’s bright and sunny (albeit quite cold) outside today. Planting season is inching closer and closer; it’s still a few months off, but it’s almost time to start seeds in my little peat-pellet mini greenhouse. We didn’t do the vegetable garden last year, so I think this year if nobody objects then I’ll plant wildflowers there instead. I have seeds for brown-eyed susans, shasta daisies, lupines, and a bunch more, plus some interesting grasses. I haven’t had to plant pansies in ages because they’ve seeded into the lawn and grow all over the place, but Dad’s going to seed the park behind the house with a miscellaneous wildflower mix so there’s some prettyness between the trees. The area was decommissioned as a city park a few years back, so the natural brush has grown up and filled in all the old paths, although there’s one skinny little trail left and the bridge over the brook is still in great condition.

I’m already getting anxious to see our little crocuses pop up. I finally got my day lilies last year, so I’m waiting on those (and the tulips, and the daffodils), too. Today, though, I’ll content myself with starting some little cacti in a pot. I’ve never grown cacti from seeds before, and the seeds are a mixed pack–I’ve no idea what’ll come up out of that pot. Hooray!

Favorite Socks and Sensational Knitted Socks both found their way to my bookshelf today. I’m itching to cast on for the Waving Lace socks in the former, but I have two projects that must be finished before I can do so. I love that there are six billion pattern variations in SKS, and I can see why it’s recommended so often.

I’m wearing my Embossed Leaves socks today. <3

I'm still waiting on the sock yarn I ordered a while back. Canada Post works perfectly fine in other parts of the country, but like mostly everything else it appears to function ass-backwards in northern New Brunswick. A pox on thee, you sock-yarn-withholding... thing!

On a completely different topic, I'm turning 28 in less than a month. I think I'll put a ban on future birthdays, at least until I decide I'm ready to start aging again. I'm putting a ban on future pet birthdays, as well, because my little Shadow is turning eight this year. She was a kitten yesterday, I swear.

I had something else to say, but it's flown out of my head. And speaking of my head, oi, I'm switching meds soon and I'm not sure what to expect. Hopefully it'll be a painless transition, but, as always, you never know. It should help, though, even if it's not a smooth start. And help is definitely something I need right now--the other night, I was lying in bed, and realised that my feet were fidgeting and I had my jaw clenched as tight as it would go. No wonder I get no rest.

There are a couple of angry-looking fish glaring at me, so I think I'll feed them again before I plant my cacti. They were itty-bitty when I got them, and now they're each almost the size of my hand.

Randomly (er, as if the rest of this post hasn't been random... it's one of those days), the song in my head right now is the one that Data sings in Star Trek: Nemesis.

For all of you podcast fans, I recommend Stash and Burn. It’s fantastic. I’m very picky about podcasts and this is one of the few I really enjoy. If you have an unwieldy stash or just like hearing people talk about unwieldy stashes (and yarn in general) you’ll like this.

Oi, and speaking of stash, one of the two almost-missing parcels of sock yarn finally arrived. I didn’t take a photo of the whole order, but I did take one of the Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock colourways I got:

There’s Cranberry, Valentine (yay for acquiring a discontinued colourway!), Flamingo (yay charity yarn!), and Firefly. I meant to just order a couple of skeins of Flamingo, since it’s for a good cause and all, but… well. You know what happens when I shop for sock yarn. I can resist casting on, if only because a) other projects take priority, and b) I’m fed up to here with hand-winding dyed yarns for the store. I’ll just work on other things while waiting for my swift.

Oh, and here’s something that just goes to show that Ebay makes some people insane. There’s a skein of Socks that Rock up for auction right now, which almost never happens. This skein, though, is in a colourway currently available to purchase right from the BMFA website for $19.00 US plus $5.00 shipping… and the Ebay bidding is up to $41.00 so far. You crazy, crazy people.

And now, I get ready for an afternoon of ballroom & latin dancing!