Whether it’s because I’m lazy or because of my lack of motivation (I do vote for the latter), not much knitting lately. Though that’s not saying I haven’t worked on anything at all since the last post. So, anyhow, here is brief (according to my definition, not yours) recap of what went on since the last post, of course, not in any particular order.

Chris is an old fart. His birthday was September 9th – if you like to wish him a happy (belated) birthday, please feel free.

Cocoa found herself a new toy, playhouse, and cat bed. All in one.

(in case if you couldn’t guess, that’s a grocery bag)

Tania and I actually met in person. She is absolutely adorable and awesome – all mixed in one! Don’t believe me? Here is an evidentiary proof.

She happened to be in Madison for a wedding – and was nice enough to take some time to see us. Totally worth 2 hr drive And yes, I also got to meet Mr. Tania as well. I almost felt bad that maybe he was nearly bored to death – totally didn’t help that Chris isn’t much of a social butterfly either. Oh well. “Boys” will live.

Couponing has been kinda exciting. Well, at least it did last week. I spent about $40 at grocery store – mostly I bought cheese. I cannot recall exactly what I bought, but here is the brief list: 18 Kraft Parmasan shakers (yes, those powdery cheese in plastic shakers with green top), 9 or so of block cheese (actually they call them “chunks” but whatever), 9 boxes of pasta, a bag of flour tortilla, Klondike bar, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, a bag of shred cheese, rinse agent for dishwasher, among some other things I don’t care to remember. I still can’t believe I spent nearly $40 on “mostly” cheese. But the sad part is, we will eat the all.. and probably pretty soon.

I have been knitting (like I said), just not as much as I used to. I finished those bright yellow pair of Polly Jean, and started on a pair of Twist and Turn socks, which is meant to be yet another twin socks with Ariel. FYI, yarns used: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock (in Sunshine, for Polly Jean), and Shibui Sock (in Sky, for Twist & Turn).

  

I’m still learning something new about Cocoa, and/or cats in general. It is very hard to take a picture of my knitting without part(s) of Cocoa somewhere in the frame. However, it is as hard, if not even harder, to take a picture of Cocoa. She always seems to have a same pose/expression, either by annoyance or curiosity. That is, if I’m lucky to get any shots where she’s not super blurry. Half the time, all I get is a blur of a cat.

On the contrary to what I said above about the cat liking the grocery bag.. I still think her favorite nap spot is my lap. Especially when I’m trying to do something.

Maybe I should go back to school as a philosophy major, and write a thesis called “Philosophy according to Cocoa: What I learned from and about my cat and cats in general”. Actually I take it back – I should just write a book instead.

I have some design ideas. I have had few going on for a long long time. And I also realize, patterns don’t write themselves.

I believe (in my delusional mind) I am (or can try to be) a fairly capable designer. A pattern writer, I am not. In fact, writing of any sorts is not quite my forte. Guess I can’t write that philosophy book after all.

I think I’m addicted to facebook games. Actually, Restaurant City in particular. I’ve been obsessing over it for few days now because it takes forever to level up. To be honest, I haven’t been really “playing” it, rather, have it open and let it run while I do everything else, or nothing. Since my laptop is almost ancient and doesn’t really like to run any flash-based stuff for more than 5 minutes at a time, I just let it run on the desktop, as long as Chris is not on it.

I don’t think either of my “children” can survive without me. Both Chris and Cocoa is helpless when it comes to feeding themselves. They both look at me with sad puppy eyes. Please note that neither of them are dogs. Can someone please remind them?

Speaking of which, I think it’s time to feed the non-human child of mine.

Seemingly I seem to have some noticeable progress on those sunshine yellow Polly Jean socks, however, not quite the case. Since the last post, I decided the sock was just tad bit too tight, so I left it as it was before (I was basically a row or two before moving onto the heel flap) and cast on for the second sock. I’m not even sure what it was that made it too tight. I know I’m a pretty tight knitter generally (for pete’s sakes, the patterns were written with my tight gauge in mind), but this was just a bit off. Ok, way off. I know it’s been a bit humid in the apartment, and that kinda tends to make Addi Lace needles pretty sticky (even more so than usual) and I must have been pulling on the yarn even harder than usual because of that. Or maybe I’m all just making this up. Who knows.

  

You see how little difference in terms of size there are between the first and second sock? But well, that’s just “enough” increase in size. Crazy. I basically worked on the “second” sock with Addi Turbo instead of Lace.. and strangely enough it made it work. So basically I’ll have to start over the “first” one… after this one. Bleh.

Let see what else I have been up to… Oh I probably have never mentioned that I semi got into couponing as of oh, maybe couple of months ago. All thanks to Helen. I’m not at all a big time coupon person though, no I don’t go in and spend $5 and walk out with $100 worth of groceries. I call it a super success if I can save maybe $10 off my grocery bill with coupons… since our typical grocery bill goes anywhere from $50-100.. for just two of us (ok, three, if you count the cat). Why so high all the time? Well, I suspect it may be because of the fact that we drink particular type of pop (ok, Mt Dew Code Red) regardless of whether it’s on sale or not. And we also buy quite handful of general merchandise too (you know, laundry detergent and whatnot).. so anyways… Yes, I’m a newbie/small league. Whatever. Moving on..

And for the fun news (I tried to be sarcastic but I don’t think it quite works out with typing..), I’m in pain.

I mean literally in pain.

I have issue with one of my tooth (if I know how to count my teeth, it’s one of my wisdom tooth – I think it’s what’s called fully impact? I have no idea) and I’ve had pretty bad toothache for past few days. In fact, right now, my cheek kinda feels numb, except I know it’s not numb because I feel the pain and pressure. BAH.

Why am I writing this instead of doing something about it? Well, I am doing something about it right now, by trying to keep myself occupied. Not that it doesn’t hurt when I pay attention to something else, but it seems to “ease” it a bit. So yeah. I’ve been trying to “forget” and “ignore” the pain by doing other things, like .. sleeping. Which I’ve done a lot lately. I mean a LOT. And my poor little Cocoa Butt has been by my side the whole time. Poor kitty has done nothing but laying next to me and cuddle up with me.. no “fun” things for her, like playing string, because I have been too .. whatever.. to play with her. Poor thing. Also, not that I’m that much of “Betty the Homemaker” but I’ve pretty much given up on house-chores too. The place looks like a pigsty. My apartment looks like a mess. I feel like a mess. I tried to read lately too. My fine choice of literature? Harry Potter. I’ve let go of my dignity and caved in – and started to read that first book (I’ve only gotten like maybe 1/3rd of the book so far… What can I say, I’m not much of a “reader” by nature)

… and I’m still in pain.

I’ve become a little whiney baby lately. Can’t help it.

.. I give up. I’m going to call a dentist tomorrow and set up an appointment.

.. guess who’s back on knitting train? ME!

It’s true. I just picked up my needles again this week (or something). I will say, it’s a bit difficult thing to get back to the mode, but once I did, it wasn’t so horrible.

The tanktop that I’ve been working on (what seems to be) forever is on right track. I’m almost done.. minus the button bands.

  

Yes, I even finished sewing down the hem.. that was quite a bit of work (especially with a kitty cat who loves strings). For now, I do have to abandon the project temporarily (once again) until I find the buttons. I think it’s probably easier to find the buttons first then try to make button holes accordingly than the other way around. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

And I have started on a pair of Polly Jean. One may ask, why are you knitting your own pattern again? I’d say, to fulfill my vanity of course. Eh, so maybe I’m a bit conceited. Who cares.

And I fear that I’m now turning into a crazy cat lady. I can’t help it. Lately about the only pictures I’ve ever taken are of Cocoa. I’m totally smitten by her. Can’t help it. But look, how could you not love her?

.. speaking of meow meow, do cats usually pick their “favorite” humans? The reason why I ask, is because Cocoa acts differently toward me than to Chris. Even though she enjoys playing with him (and string) and don’t mind getting pet from him, she wouldn’t go plop down on his lap like she would do to me, or giving “bath”. (So yes, apparently, according to the cat, I’m stinky?)

Now for non-kitty (or my vanity) related news, I would like to congratulate Shannon Okey and her friend Arabella Proffer for opening their brand new studio. Their launch party is tomorrow. Please check out Shannon’s website for more information. Congrats again!

.. and I still like my lap kitty

Where did the whole month of May go?

Not whole lot happened, but I did keep myself busy, in one way or another. I did knit a bit. A little bit. Not something I can share with the world (yet). Oh yeah, it’s all about knitting in secrets. The only non-secret knitting is that tank top I’ve been working on forever, rather, I haven’t worked on. It’s almost done. In fact, it’s been “almost done” for a bit over a month now. Geesh.

Oh and a big news (at least to me) – we have a new member to our household. Cocoa the cat has joined the family! Yes, I was cat sitting her – which meant to be for only 2 weeks but ended up being for 3 weeks. Then she went home (for 5 days)… then she packed up and decided to move in with us!

Everyone, this is Cocoa.

This is probably the best depiction of Cocoa in her “daily” life. She likes, no loves to play with string. She’s also very quiet – rarely meows, though she does squeak. Even her purring is so quiet that you can’t hear it unless she’s cuddling right next to you. Even though she enjoys her “alone time” during the day, she plays an excellent role of a lap kitty at night.

Anyways, she’s my new buddy. Silly little mitten kitten.

Today is Kitty Cat Day! Chris’s sister’s cat will be staying with us for next couple of weeks, and she should be here any moment now, so this will be short and sweet.

First affair, I did manage to finish those two remain pairs of socks before end of March. Go me!

  

On the left, is Twisted Flower by Cookie A: Dream In Color Smooshy in Wisterious, size 1.5 (2.5mm) needles. And of course, one of the twin socks with Ariel. On the right is heavily modified version of Gentleman’s Fancy Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush. Again, with size 1.5 (2.5 mm) needles, in Universal Yarns Pace Step in some random bluey color. The most obvious modification being is different gauge than the pattern calls for (to accommodate the needle size), and I also carried the stitch motif down to the heel flap instead of stockinette as the pattern calls for. These socks were for Ana.

Next in agenda: a tank top. I named it “Not Picovoli”. Why? Because I intended to make Picovoli when I originally received the yarn from Ariel. Then after a bit of thinking, I decided I’m going to go for a different route. Here’s a sneak peak of the details.

  

Yes, I did hemmed details for the armhole and neckline. Yes, it was a lot of grafting than I can handle.

Anyway, it’s coming along, like it or not. I have more progress pictures on flickr and on Ravelry if anyone’s interested – it shouldn’t be too difficult to find me on either sites, really. More details on the project and my thoughts or whatever shall be discussed in later post(s). For now, I’m going back to anxiously waiting for our furry house guest to arrive. It’s all good.

Warning: this is probably a pretty picture-heavy post.

Don’t you love it when a blog post starts with a warning? (Though, personally I don’t really care)

Let’s start with stuff I finished “recently” – by which I meant in March… so far anyway.

  

From top left:
Robot mittens are finally finished. It took me next to forever to finally finished duplicate stitching the second robot. I really should mail them out to Carol now that they’re finished and now that it’s getting warmer and warmer.
And.. yet another pair of Embossed Leaves socks – except, this time, they’re for me! Used Louet Gems fingering in Pewter, with 2.5mm needles. And of course, toes and heel flaps are done my way, you know, whatever I feel like.
Burgundy Monkey socks for Sue – used Fortissima Socka, 2.5mm needles, again, heels and toes are done “whatever I want” way.

Speaking of Sue, she was first knitter/friend I met in Milwaukee, and only after about 2 months of knowing her, she’s moving. These were “farewell” socks for her. I got to see her one last time before she was leaving – in fact, she invited me to her house and let me go through quite a bit of her stash. Now I have a lot more yarn than I know what to do with:

Most of them are really neat vintage yarn. I really don’t think I’m going to bother myself trying to upload them individually to Ravelry stash page (maybe I would do that for more “current” yarn that already exist in their yarn data base). Seriously, I’m like the biggest yarn mooch in the world. My stash mostly consists of “other people’s generosity” – crazy! Thank you everyone who ever sent me yarn! Without you, I wouldn’t have anything to knit with

… so it’s true – I never turn down free yarn.

And here are my current works-in-progress. Yes, I said “plural” – I’ve joined the gang of multiple WIP’s.

  

On the left, is Twisted Flower twin socks (with Ariel, of course. On the right, is a pair of socks for Ana – she knows what it is, she knows which yarn I’m using. But I have decided to hide the actual pictures until she receives the socks. I don’t know if she reads my blog, but “just in case”. Even though I already told her which pattern & yarn I’m using, I think it’s still a bit of surprise once you actually see the actual sock (or so I’m hoping).

Even though I’m not sure how much knitting I can get done for the rest of the week this week, I’m hoping to get both of these finished by the end of March. I have a feeling there won’t be much “show & tell” kind of knitting in April – I have decided it will be (my personal) designing/pattern writing month.

… and now, it’s time for me to start picking up the apartment before my motivation runs out.

So, well… once upon a time. No, “earlier toay” I was going downstairs to take a bag of trash out, and figured, oh I might as well check the mail.

Ok, actually, let’s start with a background story. So, I have this crazy friend named Ariel. Some of you may know her as the “sock princess”, some of you may not. So, anyway, few nights ago, after hours of skyping, we decided to swap out some yarn – I was going to send her SWTC Phoenix (which mean for a Coachella), and she was going to send me her Debbie Bliss Cathay (enough for a Picovoli). And even though I (not knowing where exactly the post office is around here) haven’t sent the yarn out to her, she promptly sent me hers – and I received it on Monday.

Fast forward another day or two, we have been working on organizing her yarn. And as we were doing it, she said she was going to destash some yarn to me, as well as some paperback book. So I said, sure.

And today, I got more yarn from her. Insano!

This is all the stuff sent me within like a week period:

Yes, she’s crazy.

You know, the original plan for today was to post some socks in progress (it’s crazy – I’ve been having multiple WIP’s at once!) and some other stuff I’ve finished recently, but you know what, that will be for another day.

And now I get to read Harry Potter (the first book), thanks to Ariel. Now, where’s my big pointy hat and magic wands? (… though funny thing is, Chris has already read every single one in the series just this past summer.. and I was pretty set on not reading them. But apparently, Ariel is a lot more persuasive.)

Oh and.. hey, look! Something chocolatey!

Anyway, now I’m running into a problem where…. I have a very desperate need for more (sock sized) needles. Now I really start to miss the idea of living right by a yarn store where I can just walk over there whenever I need to – I guess I kinda took that for granted. Poo.

Ok, time for me to go wake my child.. er, boyfriend up from his wee nappy nap so we can go grocery shopping.

The end.

Ok, so this apartment is way too bright. Sun in my eyes…. seriously I have a blind spot now. So I’m taking a wee break from knitting and hey, what do you know, I’m blogging.

… let see, what have I done in past month, in the very short month of February.

My friend Ranaee was here. We went and did some tourist things. Went to a zoo, and to Milwaukee Public Museum. We tried to go for tour & fish fry at Lakefront Brewery and that totally backfired – by the time we got there, tour tickets were completely sold out, so we had to settle for just fish fry (which is another crappy story – they were extremely busy and the table pager they gave us was dead so we had to wait forever plus one). Oh and I got carded at a mall, because they thought I looked “underaged”. Seriously? Not even 18?

And I spent, or rather “wasted”, a whole week playing a game. Oh yes world – MJ has crossed the line to the dark side. MJ has played a RPG game (…. help me). I seriously spent a week, night and day, playing Fable: TLC, like, sleep deprived all night and day. And we all know that MJ doesn’t really play any games. I can barely play Mario Bros. But well, what can I say, it was stupid but it was kinda interesting. At the end, I felt like the game should have lasted longer. And at the end, as you accumulate all the points and buy all these powers & magic and such, it just got too easy. So.. yeah, the game was fun… until the end when it kinda became disappointment. As much of a waste of time it has been, one accomplishment (or lack there of) is that this was the first time I played a game and finished. So, there.

Oh and I finished a pair of socks: twin sock with Ariel, of course.

First time using STR lightweight – the color was like “well, that’s nice” – after all, color preferences are subjective thing. But my goodness, the yarn base itself is fabulous, I can see what the fuss is all about.

Right now, I’m working on couple of pairs of socks. Yes world, MJ has joined the multiple WIP club

  

On the left is Twisted Flower (Cookie A), and on the right is Embossed Leaves socks. TF is another twin sock with Ariel, and as for EL, this is the first pair I’m actually making for myself (but 3rd time making it altogether). Of course, EL is done in my butchered way – b/c as pretty as it appears to be, I don’t really like that garter detail on heel flap on the original pattern, and also the toe shaping.

Oh and last night, I invaded a local knitting group. That was totally awesome. Everyone was really nice. I’m tracking them all down one by one on Ravelry and adding them as friend. There is a ravelry group so I probably could just mass add them all, but right now I’m on a mission I figure, that way, I can remember who they are, by trying to guess by looking at their profiles/pictures/projects. Anyway…

On a random note, I’m drinking (or sipping through a straw) Strawberry Banana Juicy Juice. A bit juvenile? YES. But is it awesome? Double Yes!

… banana flavored juice is a bit weird though. You know, because banana isn’t exactly the juciest fruit. But then again, this is probably mostly apple juice anyway, with “hint of banana”.

… and I want to go to Stitch & Pitch in July, at Miller Park.

… and it was a bit awkward (actually not “awkward” but rather “pricey” would work) to order hard liquor from a pub in Milwaukee (hello.. it’s the world of Miller & PBR). Maybe it’s time for me to move onto beer.

And that concludes my babbling about nothing.

Happy Birthday to me, and a free pattern for you!

I present you, Polly Jean!

download pdf file  /  additional pictures

  

  

Enjoy!

I decided to take the “tradition” and actually post two days in a row. If this helps me to stay away from more productive things like.. doing laundry or go to Kinko’s, sure, why not.

I started on the second sock for Diamondy twin. I’m kinda strange and I rarely ever have problem with so-called SSS, or Second Sock Syndrome. But then again, now that I’ve said it, I probably jinxed it.

Look! Progress! Hooray.

Ariel thinks I’m going fast. I beg the differ. I’m doing this one at a time, she’s doing it 2 socks at once. That’s why I may “appear” to be faster. So… CHILL!

And… as you may have guessed, I am trying to make the socks identical – however, I think I’m off by a bit. It’s probably not super noticeable until the heel flap. Crap.

I know I know, what kind of crazy person trying to make an identical pair out of variegated yarn? Me, of course.

That’s it for now. Maybe there will something more exciting happening tomorrow. Maybe not.