No excuses!

That's right, folks. I have no excuses as to why I have not posted in so long. None, whatsoever. There, I have admitted fault! (...are you happy, Mother?)

...anyhow, here I am. I am here, changing the way that things are going to work. Up until...oh, my last post, I used this blog only for the reporting of new things knitting. Now, oh, now we shall conquer...um...talk about just general things as well. I decided that this would be okay, possibly spice things up some, and have the side effect of keeping any family that may read my blog in touch with what I've been up to (this is to make up for my short-comings in keeping in touch with said family, of course).

Now it's time to get down to business.

Behold, for I am the almighty cabinet-maker! ....well, maybe not. However, I did put together this nifty yarn/fiber cabinet. It eliminated all of those nasty plastic bins from the posting before this one, and gave me some more room for my spinning wheel & stool. Observe, we have a picture with the cabinet doors closed:



and then one with them open, displaying how I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to yarn and fiber purchases:



We have acrylics on the upper-left two shelves, wool on the bottom two, cotton on the upper-right, and roving on the lower-right three. Inside the top drawer we have needles, second drawer are spinning tools, third we have unfinished objects (boy is that an ugly drawer), and...um...nothing in the bottom drawer. Just so you know, or should anyone actually care.

Oh, and some progress on Rogue, the hoodie that I started in late June and worked on until mid-August. I had to put it down because I got to a frustrating part that I worked three times before I had to either burn it or unravel it and feed it to Freya. I chose to put it down, after working for seven solid weeks on it.



I have plans to get back to it soon, since I would like for it to be completed for winter time. It is still in the lower '90s most of the time here right now, so I'm in no rush though.




Here's a picture of the couch afghan that I was working on for seven months. I started it in January, and finished it in July. I could have had it done before then, but I was only working on it when I was...well, on the couch, since it eventually got so big that I couldn't fit it in a bag to work on it anywhere else. That it Tommy peeking out from below it, he was kind enough to model it for me.



Lessons in designing your own patterns 101:

1) Math is your friend
2) Math=frustration=knitting happiness
3) When your math is correct, and you are frustrated, your knitting is not correct
4) See above, and repeat

The piece of knitting above is a pillow that I have been working on for my cousin Kelly's daughter, Alyssa (I think I spelled that correctly, please correct me if I'm wrong). It took me about two weeks from start to finish, and all it needs now is for me to make a little stuffed pillow for the inside of it, since nobody makes pre-stuffed 9 inch square pillows.

AND NOW FOR THE NON-KNITTING RELATED CONTENT!
(::in British accent:: And now, for something totally different...)




That's a picture of my step-brother Shane, Tommy, and I at Cowtown in Wichita, which was full of Old West re-enactment bliss. We had a lot of fun, and I got a lot of use out of my camera that day...and taught Mom a little bit about her camera, too. The only downfall was that Rick couldn't come because he had work and couldn't get off.

Down below is a picture of a butterfly I took on the farm on the same trip (this was about two weeks ago). I just thought that it would be a neat picture to share.



...drumroll please? We have a new addition to our family. He was donated to us from my Aunt Dedra last month, and he's settling in nicely. His name is Shinji, and he's our new pet chinchilla.



Welcome to your new home, cutie.



He came with everything ready to go, even a cage, but we decided that a different style of cage would be easier on his feet and make him a happier little guy. He had been happy at Aunt Dedra's, but with their new baby and everything going on there, Aunt D wanted to make sure that he had enough attention and was in a home with people who already had experience with small animals. Rick and I had two guinea pigs (Beep and Blip, bless their hearts), and Tommy has a chinchilla currently named Anubis. Lets just say that Shinji is well on his way to being a spoiled cutie-pie.

That's about all for this posting, on the agenda for next time:

Spinning fun, dyeing craziness, and if we're lucky, maybe my roses outside will have bloomed.