Sunday, March 30, 2008

2007 Rockin' Sock Club - Year in Review

December - Salish Sea Socks (Ravelry link)



















October - Lenore (Ravelry link)



















August - Summer of Love Lace (Ravelry link)



















June - Solstice Slip (Ravelry link)



















April - Knee High to a Grasshopper (Ravelry link)



















February - Inside Out (Ravelry link)

Monday, March 24, 2008

Hmmmm, makes you think




What Christina Means



You are very open. You communicate well, and you connect with other people easily.

You are a naturally creative person. Ideas just flow from your mind.

A true chameleon, you are many things at different points in your life. You are very adaptable.



You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out.

Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia.

Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person.



You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You're always up to something.

You have a ton of energy, and most people can't handle you. You're very intense.

You definitely are a handful, and you're likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun.



You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing.

You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long.

You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start.



You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong.

You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know.

You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don't have as much going for them as you do.



You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life.

You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home.

You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble.







You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people.

You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts.

You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals.



You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection.

You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive.

You have the classic "Type A" personality.

Monday, March 10, 2008

New cars, tattoos and laptops

I've been working a ton of overtime at work lately (one reason for the infrequent posting) and having to work between 3-4 building as well. So, they finally decided to give me a laptop. The laptop came with a big huge ugly case to tote it around in and there was no way I was going to use it. So I started searching Ravelry for a felted laptop sleeve that I could knit and use with a backpack so if I wanted to ride my motorcycle to work I still had a way to transport it and keep some paperwork with it. I found Adam's Super Duper Felted Laptop Tote to be just the ticket. He has great instructions on how to customize a tote to the exact dimensions of your laptop using any yarn and pre/post felting gauge. It worked out pretty good. I even was able to use my swatch as a pocket. The flap turned out a little smaller than I wanted but that's because I ran out of yarn not really because of miscalculations. Then I did my first needle felting to add some decorations and personalizations to my laptop sleeve. Here is my Ravelry project page. I used size 10.5 needles and 2 skeins of cascade 220 and 2 skeins of Crystal Palace kids merino. The yarn was from my very first knitting project, a pair of leg warmers that never got finished. Once I learned to knit and pearl with all that 1x1 ribbing in the round I jumped right into socks and those legwarmers fell by the wayside. When I started looking for yarn for the laptop sleeve I remembered the legwarmers and thought that the cascade 220 would be perfect. I love the purple goodness of it.

I've started on the socks from the December kit from the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Rockin Sock Club. It's the Salish Sea Sock pattern from Cat Bordhi that starts with a star toe. According to the measurements I should take a size large so that is what I cast on for but it is turning out way to big. I only have about 2.5 inches done but it was a very fiddly cast on so I'm trying to decide if I can rip back to the increases or if I need to just start over with a smaller size. And if I need to go down one size or two. If you've done this pattern let me know. I think some Ravelry research on this one is in order. So, the knitting has been mostly in time out this weekend although I did work on it a little even though I knew it was turning out too big. I thought about just continuing on and giving them to someone else with bigger feet but this pattern is just so complicated that I think I need the foot to be available for frequent fittings if I expect anyone to be able to wear them.

This past weekend was the first weekend I had off in about a month so I was able to get a little more work done on my butterflies tattoo. I got two new butterflies added. This will eventually go into a full sleeve of butterflies and there will background added as well. You can see how it connects to the previous work I had done on my back.

And on Saturday we went car shopping! Here's my new little baby, a Scion xD! Ain't she purty? And she gets 33 mpg which is good news with the way gas prices are headed! I think I'm in love!