Some days, life just sucks...

...but you have to carry on anyway, and it helps, I find, to force yourself out of your angry, vitriolic thoughts and focus on something good. So, let's go with that, shall we?

First, you readers apparently know me well enough to know that I am far more likely to walk around with a monkey on my head than I am to quit eating meat and other animal-related products. Yep, going vegan would be a huge joke for me. I love me some meatless meals, but don't even try to take away my eggs or cheese. I'll hurt you. ;) (And for those of you who didn't figured it out, the monkey on my head was from Ravelry's April Fool's joke of putting something funny on top of each person's ravatar...this year, I had a monkey. I think I had a Carmen Miranda hat last year. LOL)

Second, and speaking of monkeys, (amazing how often I do speak of them, it seems, LOL), I finally finished my monkey socks! I missed the KAL deadline by two days, but at least I've got yet another pair of yummy socks to enjoy on my feet...


These socks were amazingly hard to photograph so that the actual pattern showed up well. I guess it is the rather boisterous Rio de la Plata yarn...so many colors! But they look great close up, to which Nigel, our Garden Gnome, can attest. (Nigel has been laying face down in the mulch since mid-winter, darned sot! Finally pulled him up today and told him to clean up his act. Sheesh! No one needs to see that!)

One of the big reasons I didn't get my socks done by the KAL deadline was that I went on a spinning binge. I spun this...

...some lovely green Falkland fiber from cosymakes, with which I tried my hand at spinning woolen. I'm afraid I'm never going to be good at that, but the yarn turned out to be a fun thick-and-thin, averaging a heavy worsted-bordering-on-bulky weight. LOL Not sure what it wants to be yet, though.

And then I started to spin this...

...this is some Masham roving I got from CJ Kopec Creations, in the Candy Corn colorway. The colors are fabulous (this was taken at night, so the lighting is a bit over-warm). The fiber itself is interesting...it's not the softest wool in the world, and it shed something fierce as I was spinning it (I was wearing black sweats and a black t-shirt, too, LOL), but it is willing to be spun incredibly thin, and it does end up with a pretty halo. I'm curious to see if it will soften up at all as it is handled in knitting, or maybe when it is soaked? Anyone ever knit with this before and have any insights? Anyway, that bobbin was the first half, which I managed to spin fine enough to end up with a true, consistent sport weight when I Navajo plied it...


I kind of wish I'd done it as a two-ply because I think I could have gotten a fingering weight, which is my ultimate spinning goal. In fact, I just purchased some fiber specifically with the goal of spinning some fingering weight sock yarn for a specific sock pattern. I'll fill you in on that more as I progress in that project.

Lastly, SIX DAYS until we leave on our Easter/Florida trip! Woohoo! You have idea how much I need to get away and melt my brain in the sun for a while. No. I.D.E.A. Truly. It's been that kind of week, folks. :P

Um...

...still here! Didn't fall off a cliff! Just busy..busybusybusy! I have pictures to post, just as soon as I have a chance. But, to tide you over, from the following list of items, see if you can pick out the April Fool's joke...

...as of the end of March, my weight loss total was 29 pounds!

...last night I sparred for the first time at the gym and learned what it feels like to be punched in the head!

...I've finally decided to take the plunge and become a vegan!

...I fell short of my March KAL goal -- a pair of finished Monkey socks -- with only the toe of the second sock to go by midnight last night!

...And speaking of monkeys, there is a monkey on my head today!

So, which one is the joke? Hmm? ;)

Slow down, please...

Ok, this week? She is just flying by. If she could just slow down so I could get more things accomplished, that'd be great.

So, a brief report on my week, bullet point style...

• The UTI is under control...woohoo! I'm feeling way better, and I'm back to the gym! Hated missing Sat. and Mon.

• I'm still trying to finish purging my clothes. I get so far into the process, have to stop and never get to finish. Which means that for three days in a row I end up with sorted piles on my bed, which I then have to move so we can go to sleep, just to do it again the next day. Later, rinse, repeat. Argh.

• I'm dangerously close to being in paper work hell again. I need ONE DAY to just do nothing but get caught up on paper work. The problem? I do not HAVE one day to devote to paper work. I do not seem to have one day to devote to cleaning my house, either, hence it is rather sty-like at the moment.  Gah.

• Despite not having time for paper work or cleaning, I do manage to have time for the more important things in life, like SPINNING and KNITTING! Priorities, people!

• I went to Cosy's house today for a spinning lesson to help broaden my spinning abilities. 'Twas fun, and I got a lot of my spinning questions answered. And I now know the difference between spinning woolen vs. worsted. Among other things, I learned that a) my default spinning mode is worsted and b) I spin left-handed, which is kind of weird because I am right-handed. 

• Have you checked out the WIP progress bars over there to the right? Hey! I was down to only SIX WIPs! Can you believe it? Then I went and cast on the Lemongrass Bolero last night, because I saw a picture of it that someone in one of my Rav groups made, and I instantly and immediately had to start one for myself. I'm doing mine in Arucania Pomaire, a cotton, so it seems I'm phasing into my warmer weather knitting. This does not bode well for getting Cosima finished anytime soon. :P

• And speaking of warmer weather...two weeks until we leave for Florida! Yeay! The travel plans for this trip have been a freakin' headache. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that despite my best attempts to fine reasonable airfares so we could fly, that ain't happening. So, we'll be driving. Fifteen hours each way. I'm trying to think of all the knitting time I'll have, because Kevin will, no doubt, want to do most of the driving. So, um, yeay. Lots of car knitting time. Hopefully we all make it there without killing one another. (Honestly? I do road trips with the kids all the time, no problem. But adding Kevin adds a whole other dimension. He is not a relaxed traveler, and knowing that stresses me out because I try to make our family travel -- as infrequent as it is -- have the least impact on him as possible. But there isn't much I can do about 15 hours in the car with two kids in the back seat, you know? I think our kids are good car travelers...but then I'm really good at tuning them out when they get wound up. Kevin? Not so much.)

Despite it all, it was a productive weekend...

And by "all," I mean the raging urinary tract infection I was dealing with all weekend. Gah! If you've had one of these, I need to say no more. If you're one of the fortunate ones who have never had one, thank God for your good fortune because UTIs are a bitch. They create the worst pain I have ever, ever had...and I've done labor, three c-sections, cracked ribs and a two week bout with viral meningitis. Seriously? Put all of those together and roll around in shards of glass, and you might then begin to approach UTI pain. I'm not joking. (I did go to the doctor today though, and am now on antibiotics and looking forward to this turning around soon.)

Anyway, knitting and spinning kept me sane this weekend. I seem to be on another little finishing binge, as I finally finished my second Soctoberfest sock! Yeay!


These were done in ShibuiKnits Sock yarn, Chinese Red (I think). This pattern was created by Kirsten Kapur of Through the Loops specifically for Soctoberfest, and I opted to do the cabled version. This was my first cabled sock, and while pretty, I'm not in a hurry to do another. (Now that I've said that, you know I've just upped the chances of me casting on for another cabled sock within the near future. LOL) I love knitting socks, and fingering weight yarn doesn't bother me, but cabling with it is a bit more futzy than I enjoy. Working through the chart did go pretty quickly though (um, when I worked on it! LOL), and I only have two little mis-cabled spots, which I didn't see until it was too late to go back and fix, and really? They're under my pant legs anyway. No one will see them, and unlike some knitting errors, I can live with 'em. ;)

(Contrary to what this picture would have you believe, both socks are actually the same height. The left must have scrunched down a bit as we were messing around taking photos. LOL)

And there was spinning-related productivity, too. Here is a picture of my Bunny Patch merino/angora from New Hue Handspuns in the Storm Clouds colorway. It is a two-ply and ended up coming in at a DK weight, but just.

It's so soft, and I love how you can see angora fibers popping out from the yarn. My kids and I enjoyed joking about me "spinning the bunny" while I was working with this fiber. That sounds so wrong, but it's funny at the same time. (You have to understand we here at Chez Beamer have a somewhat warped sense of humor.)

And here is the first skein of the merino/seacell from River's Edge Weaving Studio. I still have the second half to ply, but this is the first half...it is a two-ply that is just on the edge between sport weight and DK. Already in this skein I've got about 226 yards, so I'm pretty pleased with that!


The color is actually not as bright as what this picture would have you believe. (The pictures, they are lying big time today!) Looking at the fiber (here and here), my eyes focused mainly on the pink and purple, but there are areas of a charcoal gray in it as well, and I was surprised to see, as I plied, just how much that gray really brought down the brightness of the purple and pink. I like it, but it was surprising! I'll try to take a truer picture after I finish plying the rest of it.

Sluggy Saturday...

I've been kind of under the weather the past couple days, so I opted to make today a slug day. You know...get up late, stay in my jammies, go nowhere, and just be a slug. It's been lovely. :) I've spent most of it catching up on my Netflix movies, spinning and knitting. I finished my Blackberry Jam socks! Yeay! I love them!

Not the greatest picture, but taking pictures of your own feet is never easy, and the cat was trying to "help," so this is the best I could manage. Anyway, I really love this yarn. The colors are just awesome, making a plain ol' ribbed sock look more exciting than it really is. LOL

Can you tell how dry the skin on my legs is? I seriously need to moisturize!

No spinning pictures, though I am nearing the end of spinning the merino/sea cell that I showed you the other day. I'm hoping to finish spinning it tonight and then ply it tomorrow. I've heard it's good to let singles rest on the bobbin overnight before plying, to help set the twist. No idea if that is valid or not, but it sounds sensible.

I did finally soak and thwack my Bunny Patch merino/angora that I plied a while back. I also have no idea if it matters if you wait to do that or not. I just kept forgetting, and I really can't see how it would matter. It's hanging to dry right now, so pictures will be forthcoming.

As for the movies...let's see. I started my movie marathon last night, actually, watching Hancock. It was good, but it was not what I was expecting. I felt so incredibly sad for Will Smith's character throughout most of the movie. I was expecting more ha-ha moments. And there was humor in it, but more ironic humor than real laugh-out-loud humor. At least it ended on an up note, for which I was quite grateful.

Today, I started watching Burn After Reading, which really should have been named Burn After Watching the First Twenty Minutes because that was all I could watch. It was STOO-PID. Gah. :P With Brad Pitt, John Malkovich and George Clooney, I was expecting better. A waste of good talent, frankly.

So then I put on Kill Bill Vol. 1. I've been wanting to watch this for a while and finally rented it. I like action movies, and I don't mind some gore, but holy freakin' cow...that was one seriously eff-ed up movie! I don't think I could have watched it had I not been spinning at the same time, thus had my attention diverted through much of the gore. It was pretty much just under two hours of Uma Thurman killing a bazillion people, and I can only imagine that, after a while, the effects people had to have been like, "Ok, set up ANOTHER massive quantity of squirting blood over here..." Still, I'm intrigued enough by it to rent Vol. 2. to see if she kills off everyone else and to answer the burning question: does she get to kill Bill? I assume she does, otherwise what would be the point? But I could be wrong.

Exhausting my languishing Netflix stash, I turned to my DVR, on which I had waiting for me Enter the Dragon. Ok, so, as much as I'm enjoying my kickboxing and martial arts classes, I've really never felt the need to watch martial arts movies. However, this one is apparently a Bruce Lee classic, and it gets talked about a fair bit, so I thought I'd check it out. Um...yeah. Well. Hm. Not sure what to say about it. It's a 1973 martial arts movie, so many aspects of it were quite dated, humorously so. I guess the fight scenes were ok, though I'm not really a good judge of that. The plot lines were pretty thin, and somewhat confusing at times, but then I don't think plot was really it's main point. Over all, it seemed hugely corny to me, but I don't pretend to be the movie's target audience, either. And I have to assume that Bruce Lee wins in the end over the bad guy, though I can't vouch for that as my interest was not held enough to watch the last 15 minutes of the movie. Instead, I went outside to photograph my socks. LOL

I really think I need to update my Netflix and DVR queues and make sure I've got some COMEDIES coming my way next. :}

I'm getting that itch...

...to cast on something new. Gah! Just when it looked like my WIP list was going to get to it's lowest point in memorable history -- I have three pair of socks, all in various points of second sock doneness -- instead, I'm potentially going to get sidetracked by something new and pretty and fun. I really should try to resist.

Let's talk about the socks...

...the Socktoberfest sock? Seriously...I should just bite the bullet and finish the damn thing. That cable chart really does go pretty quickly, and once I'm through with that, its just a toe and it's done. I could have that done in two days, easy. Maybe even one, if I opted not to shower, do laundry, go to the gym or feed my family. 

...the Blackberry Jam sock? I'm on the boring knit even part of the foot between the heel decreases and the toe. It's an easy, mindless knitting sock, though, so it would make good TV knitting this weekend. 

...the Monkeys? I just started the second Monkey yesterday, after going back and ripping out the toe of the first and making the foot longer (I was going to wait until I'd done the second sock, but knowing the first wasn't right was making me CRAZY and I just couldn't let it be, LOL). The Monkey pattern moves fast, and I do need to get that one done before the end of the month since it is a March KAL project.

So, if I've got three socks that should all, theoretically speaking, go quickly...why aren't I getting any of them done? Oh yeah. Because I'm working on three different socks and not giving any one of them my full attention. Knitting ADD strikes again! ARGH.

The only other project I have on the needles (aside from some ongoing afghan projects) is Cosima, which I really do want to finish, but with the weather getting warmer, I'm just not that into it. I fear it is going to end up in the same fate as the other Malabrigo sweater I had going that I finally frogged...if I leave it to finish for fall, I will (hopefully) have lost more weight, and it will be too big, thus I'll frog it instead of making a sweater that will be too big. If only I could see the future on that one. (Crystal ball, anyone?)

(Oh yeah. I still have that Ribbon Lace Scarf on the needles, too...I think that will be a Florida-driving project, though. Small, easy...maybe it will even get finished! LOL)

I'm getting the urge to knit spring and summer things. I'm thinking about doing this Drawstring Raglan (Interweave Knits, Summer 2008). I bought the yarn for it before the shop closed last year, and my friend Heather from the shop made a pretty mono-color version of it with buttons instead of the drawstring and a v-neck instead of the flappy bits at the top edges. 

Or maybe this: Bella Paquita. So very pretty. Not sure if I'm up for the challenge of that lace edging, though. 

Or possibly this: Phyllo Yoked Pullover. Its done in cotton, so it would work for warmer weather. And it would possibly fulfill my itch to do a yoked pattern.

I really could use a summery cardi in brown...I've got some Silky Tweed that'd been hanging around for such a project, and I've also got some brown Schulana Merino Cotton that would work, too. I could do a Hey, Teach! for myself with either of those, I think. I liked how my mom's turned out last year. Hm. All I know is I do NOT want to knit something that involves miles of stockinette. Decimal from the new Knitty is pretty, too, though. Ahh! Too many options!

Decisions, decisions....

Spinning, talking cats, and messages from booze

Behold! The first half of this pretty pink and purple merino/sea cell is now spun...

As I progress in this adventure we call spinning, I'm trying to become more mindful of what I'm doing. One thing I'm trying to remember to do is to think ahead to my plans for plying before I begin spinning. So far, I've mostly just spun my fiber, then taken the bobbins and plied them, which works fine if the singles are evenly distributed between an equal number of bobbins. I've found, however, that doesn't usually end up being the case.

This time, I had the forethought to divide the fiber into two equal sections before beginning. I even weighed them. So, technically, I've got an even split of two ounces each, thus I should be able to do a two-ply without much left over on one bobbin at the end. I realize this depends on me spinning both halves the same way, which is not all that likely, but hey...I'm trying. (I have no idea if this is how knowledgeable spinners go about things, but it seemed to make sense to me.)

This fiber is, in a word, delicious. It spins sooooooooo nicely and feels so good as it goes through my fingers. The staple length is long enough that I'm able to draw it out and spin pretty darned fine and fairly consistently. (Or so it seems. The truth will come out on that issue when I begin to ply.)


I think I'm also doing better with the over-spinning. But again, plying will prove me either right or wrong on that.

And do you notice that sunshine on my fiber? Yeah! It is BEAUTIFUL out there today! Had to take pictures outside. But then, that invites company...


And finally...my friends James, Bailey and I hope you had a lovely St. Patrick's Day yesterday!

That's a mug full of Irish coffee sitting in front, which I drank last night, NOT this morning before creating the talking cat montage, thankyouverymuch. ;)