ZOMGZOMGZOMGZOMGZOMG

Hi, short post.

Got Age of Conan installed last night. On the Damballah server, fyi.

Got a Wii Fit today.

Will promise to keep kids fed, clean and housed. Anything else is gravy for the next week.

Well, I'll be...

Overheard earlier today:

Mr. Ninja: "Why's this clone trooper hiding behind the desk? With his head turned backwards?"
Mr. Munchkin, with a huge eyeroll: "Jedi Mind Trick. Duh."

Anyway. Mr. Munchkin and I were amusing ourselves yesterday with kool-aid and fiber. I set him up with some undyed sock yarn and let him loose. I'll show you the results later, the skeins are still drying. At the end, there was still some dye kicking around, so I shrugged and dumped it all into a pot with a bunch of superwash merino roving. I wasn't expecting much as it was orange, red and purple - definitely not my first choice of colours. This is what I got:

I sighed a little when I was waiting for it to dry and figured that since it wasn't really hitting a sweet spot for me, I would use it to practice my long draw technique with. Well, lo and behold:

I lurrrrve it. Can't wait to see what it becomes. Meanwhile, I've also been spinning some of the BFL that I got from Crown Mountain Farms - the Novalis colourway has been calling my name.

And yet somehow, I'm not nearly as entranced with the actual singles.

I'm not sure that I'm going to like the barberpole effect with these colours. I find it weird how different the two yarns are from what I was expecting, but it just goes to show that it does pay to push yourself out of a rut every once in awhile.

I'm a little bummed at the moment - I lost one of my WIPs and the lovely project bag that Lesley made for me while I was pregnant. So if you're walking around Fisherman's Cove and see a lonely bag of knitting, drop me a note eh?

Baby pic of the day:

Fear the Stormpooper.

Nebula revealed.

I finished spinning Nebula last night. This yarn was SO much fun to spin. I would be going along, drafting and then all of a sudden, a gigantic slub of blue silk would appear. Or, I'd be just about to spin a bunch of silk, and it would be consumed by some black merino. It was like watching the birth and the death of galaxies. So cool.

Today, I tried a test ply...and didn't like it at all.


The two plies seemed to be cancelling out the prettiness, and making the whole yarn kinda greenish. So I'm setting the twist and calling it done as a single ply, lace weight. I'm already planning to use this for a spectacular shawl. Just need a pattern. The skein has about 880 yards, so it's enough for something really cool, I hope.


I just can't seem to get a good photo of this yarn - it's so pretty IRL. And it's a good thing that I finished Nebula last night, 'cause my Crown Mountain Farms order arrived today! One of the co-ops I'm in does an annual order from CMF, and every time I order some...I wish I'd ordered more. Check these out.


BFL and superwash merino. Hooray for sunshine! Hooray for pretty yarn! Hooray for sheep!

Arachne ain't got nuthin' on me...

So, just about the only crafty thing that I can do with Miss E attached to me has been spinning. She has been having a rough week - first shots, poor wee thing - and refuses to let me put her down. Thank goodness for my mei buckle tai. I've been trying to knit with her in the carrier, but I have to hold my arms at an odd angle and it hurts. And forget sewing...the noise of the machine wakes her up everytime. But I can spin standing up, and the whirring of the wheel seems to soothe her.

I had some yarn that had been sitting on the bobbin for the longest time, and I wanted to finish it up. So I decided to give Navajo plying another shot. Let's just say that it wasn't pretty the first time that I tried the Navajo method, and that there was lots of alcohol and cursing involved. Sort of like a really good Colonel Tigh imitation. It went better this time, but not by much. (The lack of alcohol may have been a factor this go around.)

Superwash merino. Navajo ply, albeit crappily done. I think that it's Pansies colourway from Abby's Yarns.

And the next fun thing that I have on the crafty horizon is a spinning challenge. On DSD, they've started a spin-a-long. We all have this photo for inspiration:

And we're supposed to spin some yarn inspired by the photo. So far, I've made up some rolags on my hand cards.

It's black, blue and brown merino with liberal splashes of sparkly Angelica and blue/turquoise tussah silk. In retrospect, probably shouldn't have used so much brown. But it'll be interesting to see how it spins up. I have a sneaking suspicion that the brown will make the black just look dirty, but we'll see.

Thunder thighs.

So. Miss E has the most gargantuan thunder thighs. Don't get me wrong, it's adorable to see baby thighs so chubby that it looks like there's three thighs where one should be. But it's making things painful in terms of figuring out how the hell I'm going to keep this child clothed and diapered. Needless to say, I've been amusing myself with testing various patterns.


More diapers in size medium. Being the lazy sod that I am, I made all-in-one diapers. Slap 'em on the kid, and she's good to go. Pattern: Very Baby AIO.


This is from the Hippy Hippy Snap pattern. I'm a little sad about this one, as I like the pattern, but I think that the elastic I used may not be working as well as I'd want it to...thereby rendering the diaper pretty much useless. Sigh.

And even in Atlantic Canada, summer is coming. Which means sundresses! I made this one for Miss E using this tutorial, and it was very quick and easy. From selecting the fabric to the final ironing, it look less than an hour to make it.


In knitting...no pics for you as I'm working on gifts. But I must say that once again Terra's ski beanie is saving my ass.

And I leave you with the baby picture of the day:


"Yay! I'm wearing knitted pants!"

May the Force Be With You...

*Warning: Pic Heavy Post (PHP) incoming*

Like I said, this one's a bragging post about my Mum's awesome knitting skills. During the month that she was up here and helping out with the new baby, she made Mr. Munchkin some amazing knitted goodies. And helped fuel my son's OC infatuation with the SW universe.




Of course, there is some major credit due to the amazing Star Wars fair isle charts made by Knitting And dot com. But on the whole, my Mum made Mr. Munchkin's every knitted wish come true. You can see on his sweaters (the blue one's a vest, we ran out of yarn for the sleeves) an AT-AT, R2-D2, a TIE fighter, a Scoutwalker, and of course, a stormtrooper. I dunno why the pics are so pixelated, Flickr's being a booger. So far, the one knit that's received the most comments has to be the R2-D2 hat in the first pic. I want to find a baby hat in the same sort of pattern - Miss E needs a hat that even she can't object to.

As for myself, the past two months have been spectacularly unproductive. Mind you, I did spring clean like a madwoman. And managed to "out" my fabric/yarn stash in the process. Mr. Ninja decided to help with the spring purge, and he started in the storage/craft/office. All I heard from him during the entire 3 hours he was in there was muffled swearing, and lots of banging around. When he finally emerged, all he had to say was "Y'know, there are less expensive ways of insulating the house, dear." Anyhoo, here's the one FO that I have for you:


Remember this pair of pants and how I thought that they'd be too small for the new baby? Yeah. They were. Miss E has the most adorable thunder thighs, so the pants got deconstructed and reassembled into a diaper soaker. That's the best part of knitting, imo. If something doesn't work, you can just try again. It's a much more forgiving art than sewing.

Speaking of sewing, here's a pic of the baby carrier that I modded - I added a pocket for my iPod and a spot for the carabiner for my knitting pouch. You can also see the ugly unmatching knee-high baby socks - great pattern, I'll have to make another couple of pairs of these.


And finally, this sock in process is going back to the frog pond. Namely, because the tension is waaaaay off. Likely, that's got something to do with the fact that I tried to knit on this while in labour. It's knitted so tightly that the bloody thing could stomp off on its own. Guess I was a little stressed out, eh?

Wow...

What a month.

I apologize to anyone I've been in contact with during this month (including the ever lovely KOLers), as I seem to have become one of *those* mothers. You know, the kind that are able to willfully ignore your eyes glazing over as they rhapsodise about their children's bowel movements. Yup, you know what I'm talking about. I promise that I'll be back to someone capable of adult conversation in a few months. Just indulge me during our babymoon, ok?

I left off promising that I would post photos of babyknits:

Jak in the box, thank you! I admit, I suck and seem to have lost the pretty ribbon that was holding the sweater together. I'm still looking, but with my luck, it'll turn up in five months and under the cat's sleeping bag. That's the only reason I don't have a pic of Miss E wearing it. Coming soon, I promise.

Steph, the baby loves this sweater. Don't worry, it doesn't really cover her face when she wears it. I just couldn't resist the look on her face in this photo.

Ms. Barnhill, I am in total awe of your knitting. When we took your gift out of the bag, I gasped a little at how perfectly lovely it was. Thank you so much for gracing my baby with your loving skill. I swear that she doesn't always look that disdainful when wearing it.

I love all of these sweaters - but Mr. Munchkin was most partial to the onesies that Steph specially made:

May the poo be with you. LOVE IT!

And Lesley, I don't have a photo of it - but the project bag you made me was sheer genius. I attach it to the mei tai and can knit while getting the baby jiggled back to sleep. Thank you!

Next post will be about the awesomeness that is my Mum's knitting. There will be much Star Wars content, be forewarned.