I was wrapping up the gifts for my swap package today, and I ended up having WAY too much fun with it.
Here’s the card I made. I had been talking to Cory about Dr. Seuss, and it gave me an idea- a supremely dorky idea- to write out a little rhyme for each gift. It was ridiculous fun, and I hope my swap partner gets as much of a kick out of it as I do. I’m mailing the package tomorrow, so hopefully she’ll get it by mid-late next week.
I didn’t blog last night, it’s true- but not because I was tired or lame or didn’t have anything to say. I didn’t blog because I was up until midnight franticly plying…
This.
It isn’t washed yet, and I think it will bloom wonderfully when I do wash it (tonight). It’s really soft, though I didn’t get as much yardage as I expected- only 162yd, but still enough to make something from. It’s a medium laceweight to heavy laceweight in places.
I feel like an impatient child waiting to find out who my upstream (sending to me) partner is in this CPAAGG swap. I’ve known my downstream partner for a month, and I finally have the package completely done tonight. I’m not sure if I should list all I put in it, in case they read my blog… but that’s pretty unlikely, and I have nothing else to talk about tonight, so here goes.
First, there’s the made things- the mitts and tea cozy, which I posted about before, and the stitch markers I made tonight. I put in three skeins of laceweight yarn that I can’t use as they’re alpaca, but I think my partner would really love. I grabbed some adorable cat fabric out of my fabric stash, and I also threw in some random (and pointless and arbitrary, you know) plush stuffed peeps that I got from my cousin. Then, I bought two ounces each of two kinds of tea, two kinds of cookies (as chocolates would melt in the post), cat toys, and cat and dog treats.
Yes, I know it’s a lot. I tend to go overboard on these things. I only hope she likes what I put together for her!
Well guys, Aeolian is… how should I put this…
In a time out.
A SERIOUS time out. A possibly for several months, you-did-something-seriously-wrong-young-lady-and-I-want-you-to-know-it sort of time out.
After it became inexplicably screwed up for the third time yesterday, I did some thinking. I realized a few things… one, I should not resent my knitting. If I resent my knitting there is Something Wrong and the knitting and I need to take a leetle break. Two, I have nowhere to wear such a jewelled confection as it shall surely, once complete, become (as a caterpillar from a cocoon, I am sure of it), and I’d rather have that deadline of a truly formal event to get me to finish it. Three, no one will be upset with me if I don’t finish it NOW NOW NOW, except possibly Janelle, but she’s wrong. (also it is slightly wrong how difficult it was not to type NOM NOM NOM right there by accident)
So today at work, I did… nothing. Nothing at all. It would have been boring, except that I actually had, you know, work to do. The day still went really slowly, though. After I got home, I spun up a few dozen more yards of the camel down (only 0.2 oz to go! I’m 80% done with the singles!) and started on a seekrit project that I cannot even share with you, dear blog. It is pretty much to replace Aeolian in my WWM queue, since I can’t spin at work and will probably havea few dead days there before the end of the month (besides, there are two “days of rest” in the TdF so you don’t burn out).
Oh, and podcast episode 13 is up and downloadable. I even checked it this time- it works, promise. 
Still working on finding a lawyer that will take my case, but man, every time I have a good chunk of time to knit or spin, my neck acts up and I get a blazing headache. Today it went away for… oh, maybe 2 hours? Just long enough to make and eat dinner, and then as soon as I sat down again to knit, WHAM. Headache. I know it’s nothing to do with my posture or the knitting motions, because it usually starts before I even start knitting. It’s like my neck just anticipates days where I’ll be spending lots of time on my projects.
Very frustrating.
However, I did get a few rows done on the shawl (and then got totally stuck, AGAIN, when I was suddenly and inexplicably short a stitch) and quite a bit of camel spun up. I took some new progress shots of the camel for the Tour de Fleece threads, so I can share those here too.
I have… oh, maybe 1/3 of the fiber left? I haven’t re-weighed it yet, I’ll probably do that tomorrow evening.
Unless the headache sticks around and I can’t spin after all.
Sorry for the lack of updates, I’ve spent most of the weekend with a headache, and a good chunk of it quite sick. Didn’t get much knitting done, but I’m back on track now on the shawl, so it should be easier at this point. I’m planning to spend today on the couch, knitting away as much as possible. Hopefully tv will cooperate and continue playing shows I actually enjoy watching! Next weekend I anticipate getting a lot of knitting done- there’s a Mythbusters marathon scheduled.
I fully intended to spend, if not all of work, at least the entire evening working on my Aeolian shawl. Unfortunately, due to several things, I only ended up getting a few hours of sleep last night. I was dead tired all day long (still am- about to go to bed now) and just couldn’t focus enough to even think about lace. Tomorrow should be better, as I don’t have work and can sleep in as long as I need to to really be refreshed. I’ll post photos once I get a few more rows done.
Instead of knitting, Janelle and I went to her place (after taking care of my sister’s dog and cat- we’re petsitting for the weekend) and played Rock Band 2. There are some neat songs, but the nice thing is that you can (at least on the PS3) upload all the old Rock Band 1 songs to this version and play anything from either game. Kind of a neat feature, that.
(homestarrunner reference, guys)
I have already finished, depending on what you count, either one or five WIPs for WWM. One, if you only count actual knitting; however, there are “events” for both finishing and frogging.
Here’s the official one- the knitting one. My leafy mitts are complete!
For the finishing event, I found buttons for those owl mitts.
And frogging… I went a little nuts. I planned to frog just one thing, but ended up frogging two sock projects and the start of my Katarina (I decided to get different yarn).
I’m officially down to 4 knitting projects, one of which is Aeolian and will hopefully be done within a week. Other than that, it’s gonna be all spinning all the time ’round these parts.
Tomorrow is the beginning of the WIP Wrestlemania, which feeds right into the Tour de Fleece! It’ll be a month of mayhem, I assure you. Here’s a log of what I’ve decided to work on.
First, the Leafy Mitts, which I will hopefully finish tomorrow.
After that, I will buckle down on the Aeolian shawl over the holiday weekend.
Tour de Fleece starts on the 4th, and my challenge to myself will be to spin every day, finish 4 wips, and one day walk one mile while drop spindling. Here are the wips.
First, the jeweltone dark BFL on my butternut Kundert spindle:
Then, there’s the carbonized bamboo on my BGD spindle.
I want to finish the camel down as well, on my walnut Bosworth.
And the last one (I’m not sure I’ll end up doing this) is a wheel project. I will either spin 2oz of tussah silk, or 4 oz of merino/bamboo.
I’m both excited and a little nervous. So much to do! Plus I’m a team captain for WWM! I’m insane, but we all knew that already anyway, right? 
So, today, 10 business days having passed since I brought in my camera for service, I called Best Buy to see what the heck-butt was up. After 3 phone transfers and 12 minutes on hold, I finally got my answer… it was unfixable. They’d known this for a week. They never called me.
I went in and got a new one, and filled out a rather angry comment card. It probably won’t do any good, but hey, I feel better. Plus the new camera came with all the accoutrements that the old one did, but I had kept the old ones, so it’s like a bunch of free stuff as compensation for my long wait.
The new camera, she has a name! It struck me as I was uploading the photos. The camera is small, sleek, blue, and above all… has no internal memory storage. It only has a memory card slot. It’s obvious; my camera is Dory, from Finding Nemo.
And now Dory and I will share with you everything you’ve missed since the old li’l blue died a premature death.
First, the FOs:
The Rincewind Baby Robe, the bane of my existence for several months. I love how it turned out. We’re still not totally sure whether we’re going to mail it or bring it with us when (if?) we go out there in August.
For the swap: The freakin’ adorable, I need one for myself now Elephant tea cozy. I love this thing so much. Doesn’t it work perfectly on my elephant teapot?
And the owl mitts, which I think I’m going to add button eyes onto. I loooove this yarn, it’s Dream in Color Classy, leftovers that Nicole gave me. Amazing wonderful stuff.
Here is the new WIP, my Deep in the Forest mittens. Isn’t that edging cool?
I hate to say it but I might have to rip back to the braid. I think my floats are too tight. 
But oh, that edge… I love it so.
I’m so happy to have a nice camera again! I feel like I can get back into the swing of blogging- and it’s just in time, since WWM starts Wednesday and Tour de Fleece starts Saturday. Exciting!
