This Moment : Shared Day Off

Taken from Soulemama:
{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. Happy Friday, friends!
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I iz Olympic strong

I don't know if you know this or not, but the winter Olympics have been going on recently. I know...how didja miss it?

Well, the thing you probably really don't know is that during the Olympics (winter and summer), a website called Ravelry hosts something they've dubbed the Ravelympics. This all started with none other than the Yarn Harlot who started her Knitting Olympics during the last winter Olympics. The idea is that you pick something wicked hard to accomplish during the games. You cast on during the opening ceremony and you have to be finished by the time the closing ceremonies close. The Ravelympics started when the community on Ravelry wanted to do the Knitting Olypmics during the last summer games, but the Harlot said that wooly sports she participated in would be in the winter only and that 4 years is the proper time for her to try something crazy hard. So now you have some back story to explain what I've been spending my time obsessively doing the last week and a half.

I didn't really buy in to this whole thing pre-games, but as everyone started getting hyped like German lugers before the games, I was caught up. I had to get in on the crazy. So I set myself a goal. I would knit an entire shawl in 17 days from my own handspun. Now this isn't really a hard thing for many of the knitter in the games, but I'm a slacker/procrastinator who has had a single shawl on the needles for like a year now and is in no hurry to finish. I also set myself a goal of spinning up all of my scrappies from the vairous dyers I had in my wool stash. I thought this one was do-able and nearly in the bag as I like to spin a lot at one time.

However, I surprised myself. I did finish that shawl in the time given, and I finished it early. It took my around 7 days to do it. That is UNHEARD of in these parts. The yarn was so much fun to watch stripe that I think I got a little addicted to see what would happen next. I also managed to score a place to watch the games as our cave is without cable or one of those converter boxes for the dinotv to go digital. We've been camped out at pal J's house for most of the games. As she lives on the complete opposite end of town, we've been staying up a weeeeee bit late. The coverage ends usually around midnight or midnight thirty, so we've been crossing town and getting home around 1ish. It's like smack...totally addicting. We took a few days off this week because we were all SOO tired, but we were back at it some last night.

Now that I've finished the shawl, I've cast another on to keep me busy during my TV watching.

But I also finished my spinning goal ahead of the pace too. I finished that the last night of Ice Dancing (stupid russians). So I've accomplished all of my challenges for myself. That's the whole point of this game deal is to pick something hard and do it. That I finished it at all was the hardest part for me. So score! I have already won gold for the shawl, and I'll be winning another gold for the spinning later at the medals award ceremony.

I know- what a freakin' dork!

But I have fun!

I have also sewn up a quilt top (well, into strips...gotta sew the strips to each other tonight). This thing is SOO cute. I linked to SouleMama's little stairstep quilt a while ago, and I used my own stash of cotton flower prints to make me one inspired by hers. I'll have to finish it and get pics up soon.
PS- I have pics, but blogger and flickr aren't on speaking terms just now.

Retreat!

[A railing at the park- really great texture to photo]
I have been retreated all weekend with my Writing Project People. We went back to FDR state park and crammed ourselves into 2 cabins. Let's do a headcount- me, friend L, friend K, friend P, friend B, friend G, friend C, friend I, friend I's 3 children. That's almost an even dozen. We had 2 cabins. Our cabins slept 6 with 1 bathroom, and thiers slept 5 with 1 bathroom. During the day, the 5 from cabin 8 trooped up to our "bigger" cabin for the work we had to do. SO- 11 people with 1 bathroom. NOT COOL. I could kill FDR state park for their 1 bathroom policy. Stupid. Nice place otherwise (oh and the mice last year), but 1 bathroom was out of the question for a repeat. We had a good time and we did a LOT of work. By "we" I mean friend L because she is our scribe. The rest of us talk out our issues and plans, but she is the one who actually puts it all down so that we can remember it in the future.

We took a walk yesterday afternoon, and I took a few really nice pictures. I thought I'd share them here.
I found this in the leaves beside the main road through the park- thought it was interesting.



Stuffs growing on trees



The sunset up the mountain on Friday night.

New Year, New Post

Hello 2010!
You have kept me busy thus far. Please to stop soon. I need a break!

Since my last post, school has started back, and I'm beat. Who knew working 4 days a week could wear you out so fast?!

Last weekend we finally finished all of our Christmases with the many extended families we have. Divorce makes for interesting holidays. His parents are divorced, and so are his grandparents. Hello mulitpile events! But we have them all out of the way now, and we really did have a good time even if we ran all over creation to do it!

D's moms got a new baby after Christmas because she missed her old one so much, and he is a trip. His name is Jasper and he's a ball of energy ALL the time. Taking this pic took about 4 tries to see his face.


I've finished a knitting project already this year after being in SUCH a slump last year. It's the boneyard shawl from Westknits. I like it, but I want some frilly border on it to class it up a bit. It was made with yarn from a swap on Rav. in the Spin or Dye Swapping group. It was in a "bag of crap" thread where you just claimed stuff unknown. I got LUCKY and was given some beautiful pima cotton/tencel yarn in goldenrod. I'm all about some goldenrod right now. The only problem is that now I have about 10000000 ends to weave in and the yarn is slicky. The skeins were SOOO small and some places were spun weird, so I pulled those out. Maybe I'll try and bribe someone at SnB to do it who is better at it than I am.


I went to Macon again yesterday for a writing project meeting, and this is what I did on the way home:

If you notice, the spedo. shows no little needle. I was sitting still. Since I saw an ambulance scream up the highway northbound while we were sitting still, I can only imagine that a wreck stopped us for about 30 mins. When I finally got out of the standstill, I saw a broken guardrail on the side where it looked like the wreck may have happened. It was nasty and rainy yesterday, and people were driving like crazyfast. My happy self drove like a little old lady so as not to wind up the next person through a guardrail.

And speaking of rain, it's still here. This is the view out of my window today (the blue car is MINE! so sexsay):

So this is how/where I'll be spending my day:

That blanket is made of all sorts of handspun yarns. I've been working on it on and off, mostly off, for quite some time now. It's getting big, and BOY is it ever warm. I'm crocheting, so it's eating yarn like crazy, but it's also FAST.

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A few links because I'm cool like that:
*A really great sponsor giveaway at SouleMama- you could win a sewing pattern + kit to make it or just the sewing pattern. Either way-cool!
*Another great giveaway of things from India at Lavendar and Limes (a new blog to me, but BEAUTIFUL photos).
*A quilt I wanna make for ME. I wouldn't be using that same fabric, but I'd use giant florals from my stash.
*Another option- I've loved this since I saw it made on her blog. LOVE IT. But this one also takes me in dearly. I want to do this one too. maybe this one before the other because I want the BOLD, giant strips like this.

New Years

freak me out. There's so much hope and happiness about a new year. I'm always worried I won't have packed the tree up on time and catch bad juju for the next year. I know that's an easy fix, but this being off thing is like a terminal disease. It just saps you of your strength the longer you are off! I've gotten so sorry...or well...sorrier. But I did managed to pick up the little decos scattered through the house this am when I got up (ah hem...10:30ish). D got the 2 boxes our decos go in out of the storage room, so I have no real excuse not to do it today. I'll think real hard and try to come up with one right after I post here.

Since I last posted, I've been a busy little bee. Or maybe I've posted since I've done some of this, but I didn't talk about it, so it still counts.

1. We, J and I, drove to the Miss'ippi/Lousyanna line on the 21st to fetch her son P who lives in TX with his dad most of the time. Remember she works with D as a part timer...those kinds of moms don't rake in the cash, esp. while they are still in college. So I have seen a few things on the way and back again. Like this:
There is a town called "Chunky." Reckon all skinny folks live there?

And another thing about Miss'ippi, they like first names as town names. Weird. We drove through Jackson, pased Brandon, saw Flora and Edwards, passed by Flora, and I half expected the next exit to be Fauna...but it wasn't. I think it was Pearl.

I saw and crossed the mighty Miss'ippi. Didn't pass out. I have a thing about bridges. I am phobic of them....seriously. Scared to death of them. But I made it over this one. Just don't ask me to drive in the Charleston from Savannah. WON'T DO IT! That bridge is high, it curves, and you can't see around it. To top it off, we wound up stopped on the damn thing with DUMP TRUCKS! I just knew we were all going to die. D-I-E! I cried on that bridge. But NOT this one:


I also visited the meanest gas station in Lousyanna. They wouldn't even put my little post cards in with their mail. Besides, it said "FOOD MART" on the outside, but it was really a "BOOZE MART" on the inside. I bought my 4 little LA postcards and fairly ran back to the car. They wuz mean, even on a Sunday.


And as weird as Miss'ippi was about first names, Lousyanna was just as unimaginative. Here is a sampling of the towns we saw on the exit with the mean gas station:
Really, a mound AND a delta...in LA, really?? Who'da thunk?

The next day, J and P came over to bake cookies. We were all so messed up from the 12 hour trip that I only managed to make choc. chip, but we made cookies all the same.

Oh, and I bought a new car. :D It's a used 2010 Ford Fusion with a blue paint job, leather seats, a moon roof, a 6 cd player, and it GOES with it's happy 6 cylinder heart. We couldn't be happier. We're still missing a few things to have it perfect (like a front tag bracket), but I keep harrassing the fellow that sold it to us at RiverTown Ford, so I hope that we'll get it all taken care of soon.

We've also been to Fantasy in Lights again, but this time we had a real live little one to share it with. P had a fantastic time and was the quietest I've ever heard that kid the WHOLE RIDE! And he sat still. That in and of itself is a miracle next to the loaves and fishes. He is a wiggle worm.

Then we've also been to Chuck-E-Cheese's. I felt like a 7 year old all over again. I played skee ball and all the little coin eating games. The pizza tasted a little like sugar was put in the crust (prolly was). But P and D had so much fun. You would have thought D was 7 too. The boys played some Johnny Nitro comic game for like an HOUR. J and I kept feeding them coins and starting them back up when they were killed. When we ran out of coins, we had all played, and we made it through 2 of the comics games and were in the third one. A good time was had by all. P even gave us some new fridge decos in the form of three spin art pieces he and his mom made with a gift from santa.

OH and we all 4 had a silly string war on our playground the night before we went to see the lights. The grown ups were out of string pretty quickly, but P saved his up for a sneak attack.

So, that's a fair account of how I've spent my last few days and weeks. Hope all is quiet and peaceful tonight as the ball drops or wild out and party hardy if that's more your style. We'll be out and about tonight at the bars downtown to watch everyone get really trashed and have a good time ourselves.

THE WORST GIFT EVAR

MVI_4683
Originally uploaded by venutian_beauty

If you love me, you'd never get me the thing I avoid like the plague. Just sayin'.

A pap smear? Really.

Umm no. I'll take a wad of cash instead.

Random Stitches

And now for something completely different...

Sewing!

I've been a little blue as of late because I've wanted to sew. Only sewing would make me happy. Sew sew sew sew. But my little $54 brother sewing machine was having NONE of this sewing thing. I'd bought it a few years ago at Walmark on the Black Friday crazy sale. I sewed it to death. Made all sorts of crazy things on it and never paid much attention to it. I blew out the fuzz balls every now and then that lived in the bobbin case, but nothing serious. Well, it's always had personality issues. It'll work for a little while and then snap every thread I put in it. I had enough of it and called to see about getting the stupid thing serviced. It would have cost $69.99, and it wouldn't be ready until after the new year. UM NO. I want to sew RIGHTTHISFRIGGINMINUTE!

Enter Saint D. He got to thinking in the car that the stipid little $54 machine wasn't really worth the $69 it was going to cost. And I wanted to sew RIGHTTHISMINUTE! So he asks, "why don't we just buy you a new one? There's one on sale at the store for cheap."

I'm sorry, was there a question?

YES! Due to some packaging error at Joann's, we got the nicer of the machines I'd wanted for the price of the baseline machine. Someone at the factory was sticking the wrong machine in the wrong box. SCORE for me. The machine was marked at $128, and I purchased a few half yards of fabric (like 8) plus a by the bolt package of fusiable web interfacing. Our final total was only $111. Granted, we used some coupons and my teacher's discount, but DANG. That was a steal. I kinda felt guilty that I snatched it at such a fabu price.

Enter J and today. She is a friend who works with D, and she's a sewer. We like to get together and make these cute, simple bags. It's her pattern, and she's planning to make up a billion of them to sell at craft fairs. We work as a team. She does all the PITA parts like cutting and ironing, and I do all the sewing. She HATES to sew in the bottoms of the bags, so that is all me. She brought over a stack of them that only needed the bottoms sewn in, and that's what I set myself to doing. Then she had another stack that had already been cut and only lacked the iron-on interfacing. She ironed them on, and I stiched them up. We were our own little sweat shop. I only poked/tore my fingers up once that required a bandaid out of all 22 bags we made today. 4 of them were mine to keep. It was a good day.


If you look at that pic, the top four are mine. You can only really see the top 3 because my Geisha one is squished under the vintage santa print.

And that brings up another issue. I found a new quilt shop in town. Well, new to me. It's right behind my house!!!! Like if I weren't a giant fat kid and a scardy cat, I could walk to it! I'd have to cross like 8 lanes of traffic to get there at one point, but I could technically walk there. That's the place that we found the vintage santa print and the skunk print. J is a HUGE fan of skunks (no idea why...), and she had a duck when she saw it. It's really quite cute. I liked it. We made her a bag straight away when we got home.

So, that's what I spend this fine Friday night doing. A nice cozy night by the Singer and good company. OH, and pizza. And a great torte that didn't look 'sactly like the photo because I can't follow simple directions. It still tasted mi-t-fine though.

Oriented

I have been doing a bit of navel gazing today, and I was inspired to post. I thought all this up in the shower as I washed my hair. Seems that's when I get my best ideas these days.

All my life, as I was growing up, I thought I was straight. Just one thing for me...easy, relatively uncomplicated.
But then I went to college, and I fooled around with other types. I found that I liked more than just one type.
And now I'm out of college, and I'm still fooling around on the weekends. And I find that simply calling myself Bi isn't cutting it. I thought for a while that it would; I even loved the idea from Miz Violet to make a shirt that proclaimed my bi-ness, but I don't think that covers it all anymore.
I've thought about the label I'd like to wear on this blog, and I've tossed straight and bi out the door. Now I've been thinking about being tri, but that sounds a little narrow (only 3) and it also sounds desperate (try anything once).
SO what I think I'll call myself now is poly.

There. I've said it. I'm POLYCRAFTUAL!

I knit. I spin. I crochet. I dye. I sew. I bake. I love to make stuff.

My mother should have always known what I was. She taught me most of what I know. My father might be ashamed, but he always has been - no big change there.
My boyfriend won't be surprised when I come out to him because he's always been there for me. He even likes to watch!!!! Ever since I've started bringing girls home to craft with me, he's been all eyes and ears when I'm fooling around. You've never seen a better fetcher when you're all tangled up in yarn or stuck at the sewing machine for hours trying to get 1 damn hem straight.

I figure now's as good a time as any, I thought I'd come out to all my friends and admit that 1 craft or hobby just isn't enough for one girl. Hell, two or three aren't either! I'm up for all the crafty love I can stand. March loud and proud ladies and gentlemen! We are POLYCRAFTUAL, and we are happy to say it!

***Nearly died laughing as I typed this entry by the way. I wrote this in a spirit of silly happiness and do not mean to be disrespectful to anyone who has really had to come out and tell his/her family something painful. I do not mean to mock you with this post. I was shooting for funny.

As promised

MVI_4428
Originally uploaded by venutian_beauty

A rather poor quality vid, but it's still funny!

My Fridays

I have a confession to make. I've been busy doing fun stuff and living a really full life these last few weeks. We have a new friend who wants to be as good a friend to us as we always are, and we've got a new bar.

I just have to channel Toby Keith and say, "I love this bar. It's my kinda place!"



We have finally found the gay bar in Columbus, and while I'm not gay, it's about the most fun you can have with most of your clothes on. Rilly.



And the costumes are FANTASTIC!!! I would just love to make friends with one of the girls so that I could help make them.


So from mine to yours, Have a Happy Holiday...no matter who you are or who you love!


ps I'm uploading a video on my flickr right now...it's a trip!

Fair Time

I got up early on Sat. morning to trek to D's Mom's house in Americus to ride to the fair in Perry, GA. It was an interesting ride.
Early

Later


Latest


The Fair means:


Candy apples.


Cotton candy.


Fried stuff.


Stuff on sticks.


Cat calls.


And meat on the grill.






And we went to the Montgomery Gentry concert that night.



Terrible shots, but a kick ass concert. :D

No, I'm not going to talk about my broken car that I killed today. We're gonna pretend it isn't broken. Instead, we'll leave this post with a pretty picture.

Helping Others

So I'm on it again. I've got my do-gooder cape laced up and ready. The Violet of Lime and Violet needs to escape her current situation and her cheating hubs has taken the money out of their accounts. Like all of it. SO, I'm donating all of the cash I make on Etsy sales. You can visit this blog to see all the fantastic things people are doing to help this woman out.

Also, there's another warming project out there. Warmth For Washington. I'll be knitting for it too.

Blogging

I'm terrible at it, but I do think about it quite often. I take random pictures to share with the blog, but I never remember to come and actually share them! So here is a record of my blog thinking for the past few weeks.
I've been stalking Ysolda it seems. First I cast on for Ishbel [rav link]with the rest of the free world. Here you see D trying to help me knit. If he hadn't been so cute, I'da killed him. He didn't manage to drop any stitches though. Thank god.

Here's a picture of it in progress with, I think, all of chart A done. It mostly looks like a pile of st. st. at this point.

I also made her plum cake because D bought this ginormo thing of plums at Sam's right before we went on vacation. OF course they were "ripe" when we got home. I peeled them and made a cake. I bought a pound of greek yogurt when it only called for like a third cup, so if you know what the heck to do with greek yogurt (not eating it straight...ick), let me know. I guess I could make gyros again and have better tzatziki sauce.
D's been cooking too. He makes strange things sometimes like these honeyed figs.
They smelled divine. Too bad I don't like figs. He ate them with ice cream from a can.

He made green pasta last night while I watched When Harry met Sally for the 1087th time. He got stuck on the "puree spinach" bit because we don't have a food processor and the blender was NOT working well with others. He managed to stick something in the blades while trying to puree. When he snatched the cooking utensil out, he slung spinach all over the kitchen. I put him in time out to boil the noodles while I made nice with the spinach. No more mishaps. It was good even though it kinda looked slime green.

And it seems that I have a new collection in my life (NO MA- no elephants from you unless they are OLD or very cool). We've had the first one for a while. We found it in D's nothermom's house when she passed away. You put the coin in the trunk and pull the tail. He puts the coin in the seat on his back. Very cool.
Then I found the wooden/copper one at an antique place in Warm Springs and I needed him. He looks like an old souvenir from India or something.

And last but not least, I picked up the little elephant planter from a thrift store in town. TOO CUTE! Fez the monk rides in him.

I've also been knitting other shawls than Ishbel. Meet my silk kerchief. This is s'posed to be made with Noro for it's fantastic colors to stripe against each other, but noro is spendy. I am not. I used my own handspun. The blue stripes are from batts purchased from HeartstringsbyDee on Etsy. The orangey yellow bits came from a batt by Funky Carolina. This thing is sooo squishy. Oh and the border yarn was spun from BFL roving dyed by Jenna at UniquelyYoursDesigns.


Up next on the list of stuff I've been up to we have spinning and dyeing. I hung them all up together to dry after a leisurly soak in the tub in many many bubbles.

To round out the yarny arts, I've also been crocheting. This yarn tried it's hardest to work as a lacy baktus scarf, but it ain't happ'nin. I give you the floaty fall scarf instead. I'm starting on my second ball now. :D

I've also been quilting. But don't judge these. I didn't use a ruler the entire time. And I can't sew a straight line to save my life. Ma, go somewhere else. You can scroll down and see Bug's quilt, but then go away. Yours is up next. You'll spoil Christmas.


My pantry had gotten out of hand, so I attacked it. Here is the before shot. No, I haven't finished, so there's no after shot yet.

And now a few out takes from my photo sessions with The Diva himself. I don't know what happens to him when I pull out the camera. I guess it's to make up for YEARS of being too shy for words.



The Merino Kid