Uninvited guest

So yesterday I decided to head over to the LYS just to get out of the house and maybe spend some birthday money. I bought 3 more skeins of Ultra Alpaca and one more skein of the Ranco with a special project in mind. After I'd come home, I decided to reorganize my yarn and knitting area downstairs. It was a MESS. I ended up taking two large bags of yarn upstairs and bringing about 10 skeins of yarn down for other projects. I decided to frog Maya's cardi. I just can't seem to get it right! Then it occured to me....Starksy Jr.!! Of course! That would be a great fall sweater for her and she would fall between sizes which may allow her to get an additional years' wear out of it. Also, I have yarn! Twice now I've bought blue (okay three counting the Ella Rae Amity) yarn just for a sweater for this poor girl and all three times, something has doomed the project! So I dug it all out. I've got 7 balls of Knit Picks Andean Silk. Seven. Thats not enough yardage for the sweater in a small size! I just bought yarn! I can honestly say, I think I have too much yarn! I still don't have what I need! I want to make this sweater so she can wear it this fall, which means I need yarn ASAP. I don't want to wait and order more. The dye lot is old. Frick!
As I was feeling sorry for myself I noticed Roxie looking at me pitifully. In this house sad look = dinner time. So I open the door to get her doggie dish and I'm looking at the mess on the porch and.....Holy Shit!! Is that a spider?!!!

Needless to say I'm afraid to go in the backyard now. When it saw me it scrambled up towards the top of the canopy thingy. Its legs are HUGE! I don't even know how to go about getting rid of such a creature. I don't want to kill it (surprisingly) but my gut instincts are telling me to go get a baseball bat.
I tried my best to capture the creepy beauty of this baby but there was no way I was going to leave my safety zone in the doorway to get closer.


Those are Christmas lights he/she is next to. Yikes. As scary as it is I can't help but feel a little compassion for someone who can spin...
Here's an action shot. Once the sun went down, this baby started spinning like crazy! All I know is, if I go out there and any web touches me, I'm losing my shit.

Post Birthday

For the past 3 days, I've actually felt NORMAL! I was sick for like 3 weeks straight and it feels good to be normal again! Only 2 days of Antibiotics left. Yay! I really didn't get much knitting done this weekend. My birthday was yesterday so we kinda celebrated over Sat and Sun. Nothing big. Lunch and shopping at the Forum, then dinner and a pumpkin chocolate cake on Sunday night. I also got to Joann's for some fabric to make some chair seat covers. I was foolish enough to choose chairs with cushions on them, now they're ruined! Mind you we've only had this table/chair set for one year! I guess kids with dirty hands will do that. So making a slipcover for the seat makes sense. Something removable and washable. They really only had 2 fabrics I liked!! My mom helped me come up with a pattern and now I'm on my own. Me and the sewing machine don't mix. Ugh. This is gonna be interesting.
Also, I've been reading Laurie's book. I love her so much! I also bought a book on Shambhala that is very interesting. So thats what I've been doing instead of knitting. I did get through with the right sleeve on the Tomten yesterday. Its official. NOT a size 7. More like 3-4!!! I'm determined to finish it though. The laziness in me is telling me that I should put it aside and finish when I can since it won't fit the criteria for their Oct. 12 deadline. I mean, I still have to do the other sleeve, finish the hood, the seaming and attach the zipper!! This tomten has been fun to knit though. EZ is always a mind trip for me because she requires me to think when usually its challenge enough to follow a pattern without error! The yarn is great. I thought it was a bit itchy and raw at first, but it seems to be getting softer the more I knit with it, and I've heard that PF can bloom and soften quite a bit after washing.

I should be working on Maya's sweater, Aaron's sweater and Linda's Hemlock!! She won't be here for Christmas so I need to finish it sooner than I thought.

New week, new projects

Whew! If I don't stop getting sick, I'm afraid my sinuses will be so screwed that I won't be able to smell/taste anything! ARG! Anyhoo, in light of me being sick, surfing on ravelry (cuz apparently looking at my knitting is funner than knitting my knitting) and joining a new KAL, I have cast on for a Tomten Jacket. Yum. I'm using my Peace Fleece and I'm beginning to think that people find wool itchy are wearing sweaters with lots of veggie matter in the wool! There is SO MUCH matter in this one skeing I can barely believe it! Besides that, the wool is so nice. Tough wool. Natural wool.



I'm sending the Jacket to Afghans for Afghans when its done. And that has to be before 10/12! Yikes! I'm at 14 garter ridges. Yep, I should be knitting and instead I'm on the computer again. Really I'm just waiting for this decongestant to kick in. Le sigh.
If there is time/wool, I will also whip up some socks or add a hood. I'm really unsure of the yardage for this baby. The gauge and sizing also had me a bit vexed; it needs to fit ages 7 - 14 years. I didn't think my gauge would be large enough for that but it is!! Yay!

I've also made a bit of progress on my Hemlock.

Originally, I told myself that if I worked 5 rows a day, that would be plenty good enough. It seems to be a quick knit and its SO fun to see your knitting grow
and take shape so quickly. I think the recipient will love it!

Another week gone already?

I can't believe its Saturday! And I've had a revelation: now I know what has holding me back and practically killing my knitting mojo: my printer! It's been out of yellow ink for awhile now and apparently that means a no go on any printing. Of course, Mike orders black ink (which it also needed) and the lack of yellow ink is still keeping it from printing!!!
So Mike offered to print some of the patterns I've been wanting at work. When he came home with the large stack of copies I was so happy!! I want to cast on for Starsky NOW. I'm going to use the Ultra Alpaca and I'm planning on having to knit the Large size to make up for the gauge difference. I did a little math and I think it will work out.
Earlier in the week, I gave into weakness and cast on the Hemlock Lap Blanket.


FUN people. The yarn is actually nice too! It is one of the patterns I now have printed (writing down those line by line instructions SUCKED!!!! I only got to line 35) so I want to get back to it. Its awesome to see it take shape so fast.
Today we went to Gwinnett Mall. Not our usual shopping grounds but we needed a water filter for the fridge and that's the closest Sears. Anyhoo, it was fun. We hadn't been to the mall in a long time. I guess its because the Mall of Georgia is crazy almost always! I hate crowds. This time, I even got to look at some clothes. Women's clothes. Clothes that I can wear. Although it takes me some time to get my bearings. One good thing that came from all the window shopping was getting to see all the fall sweaters. Lots of short cardi's and lots of cables. Many of the sweaters I saw in multiple stores looked a lot like Wendy's Flair. Awesome!
I'm probably one of the WORST shoppers I know. I'm turning 30 this year. I'm 5'4", 125 lbs. In what department do I shop?! Do I wanna look like a college slut? Or like I'm a 45 year old school marm? The only stuff I found was in the "business professional" section. Where am I going to wear nice stuff like that? To the elementary school when I help out my sons Kindergarten teacher for 30 minutes every Wednesday?! Can you tell that I hate shopping? I think this also stems from the fact that my kids are in school and I feel like I'm in limbo. Stay at home mom? Go back to school? Get a job? Ugh! Give me my bottle of wine and pass the knitting.

September already!

Wow. Just got back from Kung Fu and my body is Tired! I ran about a whole mile yesterday and today my entire torso is sore. ? I'm not sure why its my torso and not my legs but okay. This week is cardio week so I'll probably run again tomorrow morning after the kids get on the bus. It was really nice going though. I haven't been to class in few weeks now and I realize now how I missed it! Lots of upper belts are gearing up to test this weekend with the Grandmaster so there was lots of excitement in the air. At one point I looked over and saw a black sash/belt (who is a woman, woot!) and her belt was hanging a little low and I thought to myself, "gee, she needs to pull that thing up, her gi top is really poofing out". Only minutes later I realized the black belt who is practicing a broad sword form is about 6-7 months pregnant! I love my school.
Back here at chez dog hair, we are continuing to share the cold germs and now Maya has fallen sick. ARG! She's a trooper though and eats her weight in fruit everyday so I'm not too worried about her.
I've been knitting on Maya's sweater and have gotten one skein into it. The color is lovely and the yarn is making a nice thick fabric.

Pardon my craptastic photo, I was trying to take the picture before the battery died.
I'm so tired of all my WIP's. I want to start something new. I've decided to make a Hemlock Ring Blanket and a Baby Surprise Jacket for charity. I also have been eyeballing the xmas stocking patterns and yarn as well as some black-ish cotton ease I want to use to make Maya a batty dishcloth (she loooooves bats). I went to the LYS again today and left with another skein of sock yarn (for chrissakes somebody STOP me!!!!) and The Opinionated Knitter. I went to find a machine washable aran weight yarn in some shade of maroon. No luck.