Pens, Paper, & Ammo

I love, love, love cowls and scarves… but never find the time to finish one during the winter season.  This year I decided to get a head start and knitted up this quick little cowl out of some lovely wool-blend yarn which I received in a swap.  The simple pattern makes it go so quickly and it’s easy enough to memorize - even with a hyper just-started-walking baby around!  I loves it.  I loves it good.

Seaweed Cowl in Snowflake from Yarn Bee - Link here!

I make some really good fish sandwiches.  I mean, I can even get the Mecha-Hubby to eat them.

Super easy too… dip some tilapia in egg, coat in bread crumbs, fry with non-stick cooking spray until flaky.  Yummy and healthy.

Oh yeah… and THIS:

My Kiwi came today!!!

Really, do I need to say anything else?

I’ve named him (I’m convinced that Kiwis are male…) Ytterbium.

The first spinning session went pretty smoothly

Ignore the stuff nearest the orifice… that was my poor attempt at an artsy yarn.  The green in the back is probably the most evenly spun singles I have ever made.   I am in love.

My big orange cat, Houdini, has the most beautiful fur… and just happens to shed like nothing else.  Might as well put that fur to some sort of use…

I forgot just how much I love cross-stitching.

And my best friend borrowed me her Kromski for the week.  It’s been, oh, four years since I last used a wheel.  It took me forever to remember just how to get started.  Eventually I got the hang of it again and spun some medicore - but usable - singles.

I love these thrummed mittens and I haven’t even finished them yet!

 And a closer look…

Yeah, that’s the same hand-dyed fiber from way back when!

First of all, Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I don’t have any crafty St. Patty’s offerings, but here is a picture of some ugly green yarn I dyed recently.

Dyed with some ancient egg dyes. It’s ugly, but it’ll make some decent felt coasters.

This last weekend was a busy one. My mother and step-father came to visit and brought along a gift of a new crib, rocking chair, and changing table. It’s all starting to feel so real now. The Mechahubby and I finished putting the crib together last night and what was previously just a spare room is finally looking like a suitable room for the Nooblet. A lot of work still needs to be done. Decorating of any kind, for example.

This picture seems to be of especially bad quality. I blame Sergio.

In more crafty news, I attempted to dye some Fishermen’s Wool with Easter egg dyes. It didn’t go nearly as well as I had hoped. I think the natural yellowish tint to the wool makes the colors seem muddy.

Forgive the dirty window seal. It was the only well-lit place in the room.

The pink and blue are from a generic 3-year old package of egg dye and the purplish-blue-whatever sections are the result of using really old Wilton cake dye. I still don’t really know why the Wilton stuff always comes out all tye-dye for me. Suggestions?

Image dump alert! *woop woop wooooooo ehh-ehh-ehh* Image dump alert!

A selection of things from our trip to the beach:

There really were teeth attached to the sign…

I want one!

Hunted down by teenage girls, the Mecha-hubby keeps his cool. Note the placement of the smiley face?

I love the beach.

And now for things of a more crafty flavor.

Made from plastic bags and left-over cotton yarn.

Remember this? But what do I do with it?!

I finally got an invite to Ravelry.com last night!  I’m in the beta!  Wooo!  I feel like I won a prize!
Seriously though, this site is awesome.  It’s like… if Flickr, Myspace, Knitty, and Wiki took all their good qualities and combined them, you’d get Ravelry.  I haven’t explored too much yet.  I’ll write more when I can!

This picture shows the worst of the mistakes made on this project. However, I think this scarf was fairly successful for a “first” (the grey and black/grey flowers were the first things I ever crocheted) project. When I make this scarf again, I will definitely use something other than Wool-ease. Despite LionBrand’s assurance that the yarn is worsted weight, it seems more like DK or thinner. It also varies greatly between and within skeins.

The craft-fad that is Etsy has weasled its way into my brain. I love the idea of buying goods that are produced by people, not machines. Handmade soaps, raw wool, local art, and fudge… you can find pretty much everything there. Alas, having limited funds, I cannot purchase everything I would like from Etsy. Oh the woe! I did spend a grand total of four dollars on this lovely fiber from SmokyMountainFiber’s Etsy store:

Before:

and After:

I’ll post pictures of the spun wool.. well, once I’ve finished spinning it.

So far… this is what I did today:

The first is my attempt at dyeing something with Kool Aid. It turned out pretty well… despite poor color choices on my part (in my defense… these were the only two colors of Kool Aid we had). The second picture is a loverly arigurumi brain I whipped up out of some chunky pink baby yarn that my mother gave me in hopes of making a baby sweater someday (sorry Mom!). I’m pretty happy with it since I had no reference picture or pattern. And, interestingly it came out to be about the size of a child’s brain. Yay!

More to follow later. It’s food time!