Hooray for good sewing machines!

I've fallen in love with my mother's sewing machine. The kind of love that, were it directed toward a human, would be considered superficial. "It's so handsome... strong and silent... nice biceps." Ok, well maybe not the biceps. But seriously, no tangling bobbin threads, smooth and quiet motor, sleek and spiffy design, and nifty little storage compartments built into the machine itself. No searching high and low for the box containing my extra feet, no! Not with this beauty.

Mom's machine is the same brand as mine (Bernina) but her's is about 10 years newer. It's awesome! I used it to finish up the bag I'm making for the swap (will post photos once my partner receives!) and it was no trouble at all.

My precious. I wants it.

If only I had money.

*sigh*

Joy in knitted alien form.

First of all, let me give credit where credit is due. The photo pictured is an example of what mine looks like, and is actually the photo from the Alien Dishcloth pattern. As the caption suggests, I will post the photo of the one I made in due time. Still, I'm pretty proud of it. Mine isn't as pretty, as I didn't have cotton and had to use acrylic yarn (ick!). Still, it's awesome. I am trying to cut down on my massive paper towel usage. I'm cheap, what can I say? It's not for love of forest lands. No. It's for love of being able to buy more yarn and crafty goodies.

The new man in my life.

Well we added a new member to the family. Meet Tweek. He's a bundle of energy, this one. Dancing the exquisite dance of fur and claws, he's a daily alarm clock. This kitten doesn't know the meaning of calming down. He plays and plays and plays and BANG! he's asleep. No cooldown period, no notice, just BANG! Anyways, welcome to our family, Tweekers.

Argh, so much for regular updates.

But I have a good excuse. I have been knitting and crafting my little heart out for the purse swap I'm doing on Craftster. I can't post photos until my partner has received her package, so alas there are no photos to accompany this post. In fact, I shall toy with your emotions more by saying that I can't even describe all the goodies that I've made to fill the purse. Sendouts are by August 8th, and I actually think I'll be ready to send out by next weekend, depending on how well the finishing of the purse goes. I have some pockets to add and embellishments to make still.

As for home life, my ever wonderful boyfriend just adopted a kitten from the humane society. We're having trouble with names though. He's convinced that the kitten looks Russian, so in a monumental moment of dorkishness I suggested the name Captain Marko Ramius. Points if you know the reference.

Only a little pox left

I managed to revive my ailing apartment. At least, revive it from the brink of death. Now it's just slightly ill. Go me! I ended up cleaning the whole kitchen, although I only had time to sweep and not mop the floors. I also stopped ignoring the existence of the litterbox closet. Phew, man, I gotta get more regular about cleaning that. Ugh. Anyway, suffice it to say, I got that cleaned and swept too. In fact, the whole downstairs got cleaned and swept. All I have left to do is move the TV into the right place in the living room, and take out a few empty boxes to recycle. Then the whole downstairs is mother-presentable. Upstairs? That's a story for another time. :)

A pox upon my house.

Ack! My house is a disaster and my mom is coming to visit in two days! The living room is fairly straight, thank god. The kitchen? I'd prefer not to think about it. The Litterbox Closet? I'm pretending it doesn't exist, thus exacerbating the problem.

My bedroom is messy rather than dirty. I just need to pick up the dirty clothes and put them in the hamper, on the pretense of putting them later into the washing machine. This may not happen for a month, but at least they will be gathered into one place. Ideally, I should take time to straighten the house every day. But as I insist on living in mess, I need to at least consolidate the mess into neat piles.

Am I doomed to be a slob the rest of my life? I'd like to blame it on ADD. "I just start cleaning and get distracted, so I never really finish cleaning." But I can't. Because I don't have ADD. I have a perfectly functioning attention span when it comes to knitting, World of Warcraft, or just sitting around on my ass watching TV. Is there a clinical diagnosis for "lazy"? I don't recall there being one. They should include it in the next edition of the DSM. "Chronic Sitting Disorder" they could call it, for that would encompass the many places I park my ass instead of tending to my horrid apartment.

Wow, a real project!

Ok, here is a purse I knitted awhile ago. It hardly took one skein, knit on size 13 circulars. I believe it is Wool in the Woods brand (if my memory serves) and it is a llama/wool blend. Colors are gorgeous, although quite faded in the final felting. Straps turned out all stripey and awesome.

I think it took me about 2 days to finish. Knitting it up on such big needles went really fast. I messed up on the sides though, and tucked them all weird. Looking back, I think I should have ignored the tucks, and just felted it and shaped it square. Still, unexpectedly it turned out kind of a strange oblong squareish shape, which I dig heartily.

Because of the llama, the bag turned out REALLY hairy. I wasn't too happy with that, so I shaved it. Yeah, I shaved my bag. You wanna start somethin'? It's not that I hate the hair, I just didn't like the amount of furryness about the thing. No worries though. The bag sheds like my three cats combined, so it is progressively becoming less hairy. Here is a closeup of the hairyness in all its glory. The pin says "A fat ass is a sign of a life well lived."

Ice cream and honey wheat bread

I know it's been awhile. Life has been kind of nutty lately. Anyway, I made a batch of Honey Whole Wheat Bread and, although it tastes wonderful and in every way a whole wheat bread should taste, it is about 2 inches tall. It's weird, and I am not sure what happened. I came down after letting it rise for the first time, and oh my blessed it had risen! Praise the Lord. Or something. Anyway, I punched it down a bit (gently), formed into loaves, and then let it rise again, for longer this time. It rose, but not a whole helluva lot. Still, it was bigger and filling out the pans so I thought "meh" and went ahead and baked it. I guess it fell during baking or something, because the loaves came out a lot smaller than they went in. Ah well. I'll have to try it again after I do some pondering and pontificating as to the source of the flatness.

Also...

I made ice cream this 4th of July, and I'm happy to report that it was NOT a disaster. In fact, I have created some of the yummiest ice cream I have ever tasted. First to go into the freeze was the dark chocolate. Mmmmm, chocolate. It was a really simple recipe, and it tastes ALMOST as good as a good lay, if you know what I mean. The second flavor to be put forth into creation was vanilla cake batter. Now, this recipe was a lot fancier, and called for a real vanilla bean. What with being poor and all, I decided to go for the genuine vanilla extract and honestly I don't think it would have tasted much better had I used the bean. Basically it came out awesome. The only criticism is that I think I left it in the maker too long and it came out a little harder than I would have liked. More the consistency of really hard scoop ice cream. The dark chocolate (my dream, my treasure) came out somewhere between soft serve and hard scoop, which is how I likes it.

I also finished knitting a hat, but as I have no photos and this post is long enough, I'll save that story for another day.

Toodles.

CraftyHobbit