science is fun useful!*

so i have this lovely silver tea service that was my grandmother's, which i've been meaning to polish since high school (which, if we're generous, was 10 years ago...)



and i've decided that i'm finally going to get it done, but hate polishing stuff, and it's super yuk to be around, so i took to google to see if there was a way to make my own (non-toxic-y) silver polish, and google did me one better...i can make my own silver DIP! so i don't even have to polish, i can just soak. which is exactly my speed. tested it on a small scale with my bracelet last night, and it seemed to work relatively well, so i'm going to go big tonight...

so, it totally worked, right before my eyes, score! the coffee pot still needs some work, but i think that this is good enough for now. better than a half-assed attempt, but not quite full assed. also, as i was doing some (very slight, let's be honest) buffing, i thought "this would have been the better part of some poor woman's job back in the day" and that made me VERY happy that it wasn't even slightly part of my job description.




*while the watching it un-oxidize before my eyes was kind of fun, this was also work, so more useful than fun. although i do recognize that science is, in fact, fun...just not in this instance.

i feel like a legitimate sewer today!

sewist? sewer? anyhow! this morning, i patched the knee of my favourite jeans. just decided that i really actually needed to finally do it, and that i wanted to wear them, so i bit the bullet and patched them up, bam! look:

exciting

i got this today:

sock theory

SO, i'm sure that we've all heard of the infamous "second sock syndrome" whereby one gets bored after the first sock and then still has to make a second sock to end up with a pair. i was telling a colleague the other day that i'd come up with (during my insane sock knitting for everyone at christmas last year) for circumventing the sss. so here's my theory:

1. knit sock one (pair one).
2. knit sock one (pair two).
3. by the time you get back to pair one to knit the second sock, it's new and interesting again.
4. by the time you get back to pair two, ditto.
5. you end up with two pairs of socks, and aren't bored.

so. it works, in theory. it was working for my co-worker-knitter, until she was sidetracked by another sock that she just couldn't resist. and being the good person i am, i definitely made fun of her.

confession: i'm really no better. i'm most of the way through a pair of socks, and have a work project, the wispy cardigan, and somehow still managed (in a day and a half), to start a knitted tutu, a pair of baby booties, and another pair of socks.

sigh. my name is katrina, and i have a problem. :) my problem is that i have a christmas' worth of sock yarn in the basement. and a short attention span. at least they will get done well in time for christmas...?

buzzzzbuzzbuzz. finally finished some long overdue bee blocks, which means that up next i really need to get my butt in gear to ge my bee quilt blocked and sashed ASAP for our quilt show in 8 weeks. it needs to be finished at least enough to be measured for registration by april 10th...less than a month from now. totally doable, right?

textured block

book shelf block for our (other) bee-brarian :)





and two square blocks round out the set and catch me up to date and even a tiny bit early!




and here is my quilt non-progress. same place it was about 8 months ago:

pintucks, here I come!

our february challenge chez beehive (yes, that would be *last* month's challenge) is to create a textured block. so i'm going to pintuck.

and, because i still needed ravelry pics for some mittens made AGES ago, and my blog is about 80% ridiculous animal photos, i present the animals minding their own business:



and then the one that gets me on the radar of the spca...

successful party, and the cat licking his bum.

it's been a full day. the man's birthday, and thus party, and the cat was so stressed, he hid under the bedsheets the whole time. but now he's leaned up against me cleaning his bum. mister man says that this shows that he's so comfortable with me that he can clean himself, and wants to be near me. i'm not sold on the idea.

anyhow, lovely party. tired, but happy. my friends are awesome, and happy moment: boys in the living room with beer and loud nerd talk, girls in the kitchen getting things ready to eat. and the boys are all capable cooks, and the girls are all modern-y career girl types. but it just made me really happy in that moment to have the house filled with noise and everyone just around, and even to be kind of weirdly traditional through no real design of our own.

introducing....the PITA twins!

bah-bah-da-dahhhhhhhhh! it's:



handout




and THE KITTEN!


i swear, this morning, they hatched a plan that went something like this:

handout: hey, i'm locked out!
the kitten: shit, me too. they lock me out all the time.
handout: well not me! so here's what we're going to do: i'm going to sit outside and whine for a half hour or so. then, come back after an hour, when they're good and asleep again, and start up again...
the kitten: ok. you know what i finds works well for me, batting at the door. sometimes, i even jump or thow myself against it.
handout: GOLDEN. i'll paw at the door and maybe throw some small barks in with the whining.
the kitten: ok. and once you're in, i'm going to jump up on the windowsill. OH YES. i will jump onto the windowsill *scheme-y paws*
handout: done and done. then i'll get on the bed and lick them a lot.
the kitten: YES! and i'll wander aimlessly and meow, then jump up and down onto the windowsill and the bed and the windowsill and the bed, and then meow some more. AND THEY WILL WANT TO PET ME SO BAD BUT I WON'T COME.
both: MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*end scene*

they then proceeded to carry out this plan STARTING AT 7.00 ON SUNDAY MORNING. today, i have honestly no idea why we have pets.

non-crafty

but fun. look!





flea market'd today, and it was AWESOME. i've been thinking a lot about wedding registries, and about how the only thing that i really want is a mix master, and VOILA. i even bargained. cleverly, since i'd only actually brought $10 in cash with me. muahahaha! it works and everything, and has TWO different bowl sizes. i'm in business! so long as i can find somewhere for it in the cupboard, since mister man has already given me notice that it won't be staying on the kitchen table. *pout*!

ps--sorry for the crappy photo, too lazy to go find an actual camera, and my cell phone doesn't love the indoors.

i ♥ my serger

it's teensy and cute and it makes me feel like a real sewer to even actually have a serger. i inherited it from a friend's mum on long term loan. and it just makes me happy. fixed up a few shirts today (with the serger, obvs), and put my sewing room more or less back together, which is nice. i might even get back to some actual sewing time in.

so this one time, my LYS totally tricked me

by having this 20% off sock yarn sale. which would normally have been fine, but one of the girls from work called me after work, and left me a voicemail message at work (she leaves before I do) to tell me about this sale, which i otherwise would have missed completely. and being that my plan for next year is that EVERYONE on my list is getting socks, twenty percent off isn't a bad deal. in fact, it's such a good deal that i bought yarn for about 15 pairs of socks. because i'm clearly completely insane. but at least now i'm all set for christmas. in the first week of february. teehee!

so i've been thinking that a really funny post about how i've clearly hit rock bottom--i'm sick, and have been so pathetic that i've been eating pogos (corndogs) and watching jersey shore ( :( ) and screwing up mister man's stupid koolhaas hat AGAIN, and how i'm clearly pathetic.

and then i woke up this morning thinking about a darling friend of mine, and felt that it must mean that she was gone. and she is. not unexpectedly gone, but really, finally gone. and although i'm still sick and pathetic, i'm also sad, and feel stupid about feeling so sorry for myself. because her new little family has such a gaping hole, as to all the rest of us. sigh.

oooh baby, it's cold outside.

let's be realistic. it's also really cold in my house...stupid still no furnace. :( but, at least it isn't wet. and thankfully all of my bee-girls are ok, but australia is having a hard time. and crafters are helpful sorts. there is a TON of stuff up for auction:



it is mind boggling how many amazing, skilled, lovely people are offering up one of a kind, amazing, creative items for auction. so if you're so inclined, it would help a lot if you checked out what was out there that maybe you would like. and if that isn't really your bag, you can also donate directly.

reason 5039548 why i love my man

i got home from my quilters' guild meeting to find my socks and underwear all clean (which keeps me from having to go to the laundromat for another little bit...) and nicely folded on the bed. i don't know why this got me, possibly something to do with the huge pink sock pellets, but loves it. :)

update, but no pictures

SO, swatched, and am almost bang-on for gauge, and i am casting on sleeve stitches tonight. and this malabrigo lace with the slightly-oversized needles makes such a lovely loft of fabric, the cardigan (if it fits, of course, i don’t want to tempt the knitting gods) is going to be freaking GORGEOUS. srsly. i’ve also been encouraged by my lys (not having the needles i wanted, but having lovely staff) to try the magic loop method. the girl was adorable. she was like “youtube videos. you’ll learn it in two seconds and save a bundle on needles!”, so that’s good. but in looking it up, i actually came across this traveling loop method, which the girl says she “unvented”, which i think is adorable, and seems more my speed than two loops and stress. so i’m going to give it a whirl with my LURVELY chiaogoo needles (which, btw, i will be buying exclusively from now on. not only is the cable the nicest i’ve used (including addi and hiyahiya), but it’s RED! you can’t get better than that) tonight! :)

in other news, i may have added every single knitting pattern ever to my ravelry queue, and i’ve cast on for a baktus scarf in recycled sari silk yarn, which is gorgeous. despite the misgivings of one of the knitting crew at work (she did one similar and said that it made a scarf that’s annoyingly heavy), i’m going to keep plugging away on it, because, dammit, i’ve already started! plus, i’m honestly not sure what else this sari silk yarn would be nice for if not a scarf. so a scarf it is!

finally, sad news: i’m going to have to spend all weekend packing up my laundry room/crafting space/spare-spare room. and it’s all going to have to go somewhere else in the house. it’s a basement space, and we’ve got mold. :( so yeah. all the yarn, the fabric, the sewing machine, the spare couch…all has to find a new home somewhere else in the house. and no access to the sewing machine for a few weeks. thankfully christmas crafting has come and gone, and all the babies are (currently) accounted for with gifts. and mister man? he hates clutter more than anything else EVAR. it’s going to be a super awful couple of weeks of crap crammed all over the place and me maybe having no dressing room, and so him being woken up when i get up to go to work so that i can get dressed. the only upside: we rent, so we don’t have to pay for any of the cleanup ourselves. oh, and the guys said that they could work around the washer and dryer so that we could leave them in the laundry room. because really, i was NOT impressed with the idea of having to move them our of the basement and having to find somewhere else to put them in the slightest.

i know that this is bad, but don’t judge me.

i’ve never swatched before. ok, well a couple of times, but not properly. (clearly, since these garments have since been frogged...) le sigh. so now i’ve gotten some delicious yarn for christmas (malabrigo lace), and would like to make an actual sweater that fits. (i know, crazy talk. but still.) so i’ve decided that i really, really need to just bite the bullet and swatch.

problem number 1: i don’t know how to swatch properly…thankfully google’s got my back. go first result!

problem number 2: i’m knitting with lace yarn, and all i want to do is really start my project! but i persevere. and may have a swatch done sometime this week and i can cast on for reals...

and on a less whiny note: christmas crafting was a success. everyone seemed to like what they got, and there was only SLIGHT being made fun of, courtesy of my dad who got some special socks last year, since they were the first pair i'd ever knitted...

so crafting fail. spectacular fail. long story short. my stupid effing february lady sweater from a gazillion (two) years ago, FINALLY got finished, but with a dropped stitch somewhere that spidered over a HUGE area, and so i'm SO frustrated with the whole thing, that i'm going to just pull the whole thing up! take THAT february lady sweater*.

i also started a raglan sweater ages ago, but CLEARLY didn't swatch well enough (AT ALL!), and so will also be frogging that. merry christmas me!



*the pattern is actually quite, QUITE lovely, it's just not happening in this particular instance...

(detour from crafting)

but only so far as the pets, which is pretty much my secondary mandate, so i feel like that's ok.

so i bought this cat cylinder-like-bed-thing, back when we had sophie, and neither of our cats has ever shown the LEAST interest in it, which annoys me an unreasonable amount, because i think that it's pretty awesome, and i would like it if i were a cat, dammit! so i keep trotting it back out to try and make sequoia love it, because EFFING LIKE IT YOU STUPID CAT, essentially.

and we seem to have taken a turn:



but i shouldn't complain, because at least someone likes it? although i could REALLY do without the constant dirty look because REALLY, i could have thought of someone other than myself and gotten a reasonable size so that she doesn't have to curl up into her tiniest little ball to sleep IN the stupid thing...and also, her interest in it has increased the cat's interest, since he likes anything his big dog-sister is doing, which is also pretty adorable.

oh christmas tree...

not that we have one. we have a kitteh instead. but anyhow. i'm not really feeling the spirit, to be totally honest. but, i got the christmas lights up, have only one more gift to finish with, as well as one gift to finish knitting, (BOOYAH) and i'm finally DONE baking stupid cookies for the work cookie exchange. and i only burnt myself once. :)

nothing particularly crafty to report. sick of socks.

the best part of having too many projects started

is getting to see them all come together and be finished.

a bee block, which is quite nice looking, but only from a distance. this block was just awful for me, not too sure why, but i was nowhere near getting it to lay flat. :(



another bee block, which turned out much better, and had FABULOUS fabrics. i have to do something in gray and yellow!



two sets of maplelea doll blanket and pillow sets for my nieces, to go with the beds that we got them:





and i'm hoping that every day will bring something more done: a cowl, two pairs of socks, and a hat are still on the list for christmas, and are all in various stages of completion.