4 things – and no, no lizard (with a nod to “Blink“)

Anyone else get their butt severely kicked by the time change this go-round? I sure did, and from what I’ve seen around the Plurkiverse, I’m not the only one. I’m hoping tonight is better, it’s almost like losing all the ground I’ve gained in the last week or so.

Tomorrow is the second of 6 sewing classes. I’m looking forward to getting into more that the introductions and guidelines we went thru last week. We’re supposed to be addressing seams, and as part of our homework, we were supposed to buy 1/2 a yard of a cotton fabric that we could tell the difference between front and back.

I got this because the little daisies made me smile

I think the back qualifies

When I was waiting to have my fabric cut, the girl in front of me was buying 3 yards of another fabric. The clerk started unwrapping the bolt, and there was a little over a yard orphaned. The pattern is outside my usual color scheme and style, but there was something about it I really liked.

Guess who’s starting a fabric stash to keep the yarn stash company?

Third thing is a thank you. Today at work I had a very sad thing happen to my keyboard. Now this may sound crazy, but I really like my work keyboard. The key touch is “just right” and it doesn’t have the delete key in a weird place and the enter key is the right size (yes, I have issues. So what?) Anyway, my friend J, who also happens to be our IT guy (he was my friend 1st – we worked together in a place otherwise known as Hell, and became friends. Luckily, we work together again) came to my rescue. He fixed my keyboard and made my afternoon much better. Thank you J It’s the little things in life…

And finally, thing four – Tomorrow is the 4 year anniversary of my blog. I’m also approaching a milestone in comments, so I think I’ll tie the two things together and do a giveaway of sorts. I’m not sure yet what the prizes will be, or what the actual qualifier is, but by this time tomorrow (ok maybe a little later, I have to get home from sewing class and post it) we’ll ALL know what it will be. Just thought that if you read thru this far you deserved a little head’s up.

Carolina’s beating the Rangers, so there’s hockey to watch and knitting to do (ahhhh the road to the playoffs – I love this time of year, regardless of how badly and pathetically my team did AGAIN) – catch ya tomorrow!

Guilty as charged. I had a chunk of time today I could have been working on the Hemlock bind off, and I didn’t. This thing should have been done weeks ago but I just haven’t been able get it done. It’s not hard. It’s not painful. It’s not scary. And yet, it’s still not done.

It’s not just knitterly procrastination though – I also completely avoided backing up stuff from my work laptop and swapping the hard drives out like I was supposed to. I just didn’t feel like it.

I know that means I have to get this stuff attended to tomorrow and that does kind of bothers me. While I was avoiding it though? I didn’t care at all. It’s not like I was blowing stuff off for anything all that exciting, it was more of a general Eff You to anything I “should” be doing.

Instead I finished the mid month dishcloth for January (new one starts tomorrow and I wanted to be ready to go) and cast on a matching Tribble with the leftovers. The tribble would have been done by now but a certain male person in the house wanted to go out for dinner when he got home from work. It should be finished before bed though.

It’s a tough pattern to see thru the variegation (The mid month guidelines said any color, so i grabbed from stash. If I were to do it again, I would go solid) but it was a nice easy knit. I love the 2 monthly dishcloth KALs and am really glad I started back up again.

On a completely different note, and in an attempt to divert your my attention from the list of stuff on tomorrow’s list, I’ll share the January installment of the Rockin’ Sock Club. If you’re in the club and you haven’t received your package yet, look away!

This shipment has a really great beaded pattern in it, along with the beads, a key chain, a pin and the traditional NSK sticker. I don’t know when I will get to those socks, but I think I would like to try them eventually

I don’t know how well you can pick up the colors in this skein, but it really is quite pretty. The various shades of blue (it’s aptly titled My Blue Heaven) and green make for a deep and delicious combination.

Tomorrow I hope to have better progress to report, both on the bind off and my laptop. For tonight though, I’m going to embrace the procrastination, and finish up my Tribble.

Yesterday I showed you the pretty Punta Mirasoft goodness that Aimee gave my for my birthday. Or maybe that was Christmas and this next one was my birthday – I don’t really know, since I got them the same day. Doesn’t matter – they’re mine mine mine mine mine

We’ve had a pretty dreary day here so taking pictures was again challenging. I think the flash gives the colors a bit more intensity than they have in real life, however they pretty factor is dead on. The colors are just outside of my usual range, but not so far that I don’t love them. In fact, I picked this very skein up in the shop when I 1st saw it, and knew eventually it would come home with me. Aimee just happened to be paying attention

Picture the colors ever so slightly subdued, and you have the color down pat.

Once I get back from my work trip next week and finish binding off Hemlock (yea, that didn’t happen today… more on that in a minute) this may be my next project. NO clue what it will become, but the contrast between the oatmealish plain Eco wool and this may be just the visual stimulation I need. Suggestions for one skein of this yumminess welcome!

So Hemlock – I got a few more eyelets finished before bed last night. I planned to get up this morning, catch up on Grey’s and Private Practice (anyone else have that Jump the Shark feeling with Greys BTW? Mary said it to me before I watched the episode, and I’m afraid she may be right. That makes me sad – maybe Shonda recovers…) and then run to Target for my travel safe toiletries. After that I was going to pack and then spend my day lazily binding off. NOT.

I did watch Grey and PP. I showered and as I was procrastinating getting dressed, I boot up the work laptop. The one I am taking on my trip. The one with all my work documents and emails and everything else I need for work. The hard drive was grinding – not awful, but it’s been doing it here and there for a week or so so I got concerned and decided to call Dell support to see if there were additional diagnostics we could run. I actually had a really great support experience – the rep I had was polite, attentive and did a good job of pretending my problem really was his Sadly, we determined my hard drive is dying – we just hope it is a slow death because with me being out of town until Thursday, there isn’t much we can do.

He shipped the replacement drive, which should arrive with the tech guys on Thursday or Friday. They will call to schedule the appointment for reinstall. I’ll just be keeping my fingers crossed til then and hoping it lives thru the trip. In the meanwhile, everything I need has been backed up, just in case.

I also had to go into the office this afternoon to deal with an escalation issue. Then there was the luggage debacle (he swears to me, from work, it’s in the garage, but I say it isn’t, from home, in the garage. Yes, I checked 3 x) so I had to go buy something. All told, my time line went into a tailspin I didn’t quite recover from.

I’ve just finished packing (including the Noro Cash Island 1 Row scarf for plane and layover knitting). I need to make some dinner, and then, barring any more roadblocks, I will sit down for some bind off time.

We’re headed out early tomorrow morning, but I’ll likely be Plurking and blogging while I am away (hooray for the i Phone! Not that I would EVER stealth plurk or blog from meetings )

Food and bindoff – here I come!

I am a dork. I was gifted some very yummy fibery goodness not too long ago, and I never blogged about it. To rectify that, tonight I will share one, and tomorrow I will share the other.

Aimee bought me 2 gorgeous skeins of yarn – one for my birthday, and one for Christmas. She picked 2 skeins of deliciousness that have been taunting me since she gifted them since I couldn’t even think about knitting with them – I was still in the throws of Hemlock (which I really should be binding off tonight, but have been doing other things. After blogging, honest!) and swore not to knit anything till it was done.

I only took 2 pictures because the flash is washing out the pretty colors – but I think these came out “good enough”. If you can see it in person, snuggle it, see it for yourself, I strongly suggest you do! Look at this goodness (also known as Mirasoft Handpainted)

I think the color is pretty much right in the middle of the two

I’m not sure what it is going to become yet, but whatever it is, you know it will be gorgeous!

Tomorrow, possibly some better shots of the Merisoft, and some shots of the other wonderful gift she gave me.

Tonight? Party animal that I am, I am off to deal with laundry, making a list for stuff to pack, and some hemlock before bed.

Especially if the Temple in question is the yummy Alchemy type! I would link you to the description page on Alchemy’s site, but it isn’t there, sorry!

Last weekend, Wendy took us to visit Knit Happens where we enjoyed much eye candy. I oohed and ahhhed over quite a few things, but came back to the Alchemy Temple several times. The Two Rock color kept me coming back – it’s a gorgeous blend of rich earthy colors

See how it plays up subtle changes depending on the light it’s in?

I’ve been spending some time searching thru Ravelry for the perfect item to knit up with this yummy sport weight merino, but nothing is clicking – yet. I’m perfectly content to let it sit while I worship it’s goodness.

I also picked up a clear notions bag with the KH Logo on it, as a trip souvenir. (I stuck a pad in there so you can see the logo)

Terribly exciting, no? I’d love to show you the other item I bought but it is 99.9% going to be my Plurk Pals fibery gift – unless I can’t find the last item I am looking for, in which case, the fiber will have to be traded out for something else that will replace the thing I can’t find. Nothing like being vague right?

And speaking of being vague, I’m gonna go do that thing with the stuff now!

distract ‘em with yarn pr0n!

OK, so maybe that’s poetic license pushed to the limits, but I deserve credit for trying, right?

Today has to be another short and sweet post. I was supposed to go to the gym this morning, and then in to work, but I’m an idiot and took my meds to close to bed. Not a big deal usually, except when they tell you not to take them 60-90 minutes before bed (“do not lie flat”) Whoops! I woke up at about 2 am with chest pain that has not subsided. I called the pharmacy at 3am, who told me to take a Tums and a glass of milk and ride it out. I’ve tried that, no relief, no sleep. I’m now waiting for the Dr’s office to open. Bleh.

I know, I know, flash the goods and be done with it already…

Oliviaknits was destashing recently, and while the Barbie Bubblegum Pink Baby Sweater from a Very Hot Place made me crazy, I liked this not-so-solid pink (Petal Shower to be exact). And c’mon now, it’s Dream in Color Smooshy! That picture is not the greatest – it was really dreay last night when I got home and light was terrible.

This one is better color wise – but lets face it, everything looks better with Tiffany blue around it

I have no idea yet what this yarn wants to be when it grows up, but I’m perfectly content to let it think about it for awhile. I have plenty of things to pay attention to while it makes up it’s mind. (and no, I will not confirm or deny any alleged caving in and casting on for a BSJ while the Cowl and the Waterfall scarf are still in progress.)

So the last time I was drive by blogging, I was trying to get some progress made on the baby sweater, with little luck. That hasn’t changed much, since I have been working some pretty hairy shifts the past week. I have made a little progress though, and when I finish up here, I will be getting in my Wii Fit time (can’t stop advanced step or rhythm boxing. Hooked is an understatement – I like the other stuff but those two are my faves), and knitting for awhile before headed back into work. Again.

I think I may have shared these, but Im not sure (sorry for the possible repeat)

That was then. This is now.

Slow and steady – I grab a row or two when I can. I need to can more though, since the baby is SO due soon… (unborn babies don’t accept bribes, right?)

Aside from working 80 gazillion hours, I have been sucked into the void that is Plurk. I have no idea how to explain it other than it is silly and fun an full of nanner goodness. Come over and see for yourself.

I also FINALLY succumbed to the goodness that is the Loopy Ewe. I don’t know how I witheld this long, but I am now 1/3 of the way to Loopy Groupy status.

There will be more details on that delivery tomorrow (and the Ravelry stuff in there too). I have a little reporting to do on a certain Little Loopy’s behavior! I just am about out of time if I want to get any knitting in after my Wii Fit before it’s time to head to work. Again.

Happy Saturday all!