PinkPurlGrrl

Random Friday

I am so scattered today I should just hide under my desk and talk to my toes, but I haven't been holding up my end of the deal on this blog and owe you at least a good attempt. 

BLING returned home late Monday night to a very different house.  I had planned the surprise out (quite well I think); she knew I was up to something so I needed to distract her with smaller changes and make her think she'd seen the bulk of it before she got to the brand new dog room.

Sunday, after cleaning the house on and off for the better part of 15 hours I rearranged the living room.  On Monday I planted new flowers on either side of our front door, and swept the walk and the entry way.  When I got her in the door she immediately noticed the new look of the living room, and noticed that the yucky old overstuffed chair was gone from the bedroom.  I told her all about cleaning the house and she praised me no end for all the hard work I did while she was gone.  We let the dogs out, I had her get Kiska out of the bedroom and I got the rest of the beasties out of the dog room and quietly shut the door behind them.  BLING was pretty toasted from all the driving and flying she had done that day, but not so toasted that she missed the picture (from the last post) on the computer.  I had saved it as wallpaper on our big-screen Mac.  She kept say "what is...  what is...  what..." and turning from me to the computer and back.  I helped her to the dog room and opened the door.  There was whooping and hollering, and a lot of "Oh My doG!".  With a thundering crash of realization she saw the completely redone room, the pulled up floor, the empty spaces where all the old junk used to live - and she loved it all.
Shirley, Angela, Trish, Ryan & TMK are superstars for helping me pull off such a great surprise.  We have had a wonderful week looking at the new room and planning all of the fun bits that come next.  I have earned major Brownie points.  Life is good.

Having put down my needles for a week I was happy to get back to my projects.  For the time being I have put the hand-spun sock into the time out corner.  It's not behaving well and needs to think about what it's doing wrong.  I have cast on for a new pair but the needles are too small and my knitting is too tight so they will have to be frogged.  I needed something new, something to challenge me.  So I picked a this wonderful pattern  from a site full of wonderful Latvian color-work motifs and I ordered my yarn from Knitpicks.  I am going to make a stocking cap with this, if all goes as it usually does it will be too small for any normal adult to wear.  Don't even say it Ryan, I know - I know Dulaan.

In closing, here are two links to fiber related news: Interesting article in today's Seattle PI on the new fiber trend, and Knitting needles with LED tips for knitting in the dark.

And here is something I really like, but I don't really know why: Captivating little people on food.

Work Party

Photo: Shirley (non-blogging knitter), Trish, Angela, TMK, and Me.  Not pictured is the lovely photographer Ryan.

I think it is safe to post now; BLING is headed for the Atlanta Airport and won't have Internet access until after the big reveal.  This weekend, aided by a hard working crew (and aided in spirit by a slew of extra volunteers who offered to be on-call THANK YOU!), I demolished the inside of our dog room*, put up two new walls of drywall, took over 300 lbs of construction debris to the dump (and additional household junk - yay!) and recycled 2 TVs, 2 Computers, Monitor, Stereo, and assorted flotsam and jetsam left from when my Father passed away.  The house feels lighter and brighter!  This was a long needed change, and really just the start of a bigger one.  Eventually we will turn this room into an office and guest room, but still have to save up for flooring.  Hopefully the end of the summer will find it complete.  While BLING was gone I also rearranged the living room, purged my extra clothing (making more closet space), and did a top to bottom deep clean of the whole house (15 hours yesterday).  I am exhausted (as is the work crew I'm sure), and I haven't knit a stitch since last Tuesday. 

Here is a good laugh for the day - my back hurts, my legs hurt, my arms hurt, my neck hurts...but that little tendon running down the back of my right hand that has been giving me grief for months is fine.  It really appreciated the knitting break.

*with 4 dogs we need a place for them to hang out during the day when we are at work, thus the dog room. 

Don't let the picture fool you

Thank you for all of your wonderful comments about created-family, your good wishes and warm feelings.  All of it really means a lot to BLING and I; you are great.

BLING is heading to Georgia until next Monday.  I am out of practice for living alone and am not really looking forward to it.  It is a small amount of time and I'm sure I will be just fine, I'm just grousing about it a bit.  I do have a few nefarious plots up my baseball length sleeves.  We'll see just how much trouble I can get into when left to my own devices.

BLING will be taking the camera with her, so you can expect posts with recycled photos or even worse - photos stolen from the Internet.  Speaking of, the photo in this post is of a baby care book my Grandmother illustrated.  She was a pretty well known illustrator in the 30's and 40's, and had some following on the west coast up through the 70's.  I think some of her work still hangs at Salishan.  I found this picture this morning when I was looking for a copy of the January or March 1936 Farmers Wife magazine.  Supposedly she did the cover of one of them, the picture is of a boy in a blue jump suit and two poodle puppies.  I have the original (it's a painting of my Dad) but I want to find the magazine.  I have seen it and know it exists, but the one I'm finding on ebay doesn't have the right cover - so now I'm confused.  I'll just keep looking.

BLING will have internet access, so I can't say anything too specific...if you are in the North Seattle/South Snohomish County area on Saturday or Sunday, and you feel like helping a knitter out with a little "work" (30 minutes to an hour) email me (link up in the left corner).  I'm generally a fun person to be around, and can provide pop and munchies - and most likely a good story.

Thank goodness it's Friday

This has been a most extraordinary week.  The visit with my cousin and his son was wonderful, they are great company and still just as charming as ever.  We are all a decade older, change is inevitable, but the rapport was the same as it was before (I refer to the time before I came out as my past life).  B (cousin's son) is almost 27, and seemed very happy to see BLING and I, I was absolutely charmed by him.  B is tall and thin, very handsome and very outgoing.  He was wearing a Hooters T-Shirt.  Gotta give a guy credit for going out to dinner with two feminist lesbians and choosing to wear that T-Shirt.  I gave him heck all night long, it was the highlight of my week.

This was also a good week for goodies in the mail!  Kim sent me a pink package filled with hand-made love.  There is one of those ruffly scarves where you end up casting off thousands of stitches.  I didn't think anybody loved me that much!  She also sent a sweet little knitted heart, knit on the bias.  There were note cards and bath goodies, and the sweetest little key-chain (not pictured because it was already attached to my keys when I took the picture.  Thank you Kim, you are beyond sweet and thoughtful, I don't deserve you.

The end of the week brought my last gift from my Secret Pal 7 spoiler - Hi Delia!  Delia took inspiration from the look of my blog and created a PinkPurlGrrl themed gift.  I had never touched the Knit-Pics alpaca, it is very soft and light - and in perfect PPG colors.  There is a bar of delicious smelling apple soap, a kit to teach me how to make my own herbal tea, note cards, and an awesome striped bag with satin handles.  Of special note are two more items - a Susan Bates set of sock needles (5 of each of 4 sizes), and a copy of Classic Knits for Real Women.  BLING was going to take me to JoAnn fabrics this weekend to shop for the needle set - now I don't have to wait.  The book has been on my wish list for a while; I love the clean lines of the patterns and the sizes start at 14 and my size is included!  Thank you Delia - I don't know where to start playing!

I am very remiss in not showing my new stitch markers made by the incomparable Rabbitch.  I had commented on her blog that she should make pink markers, and BOOM up they went a few days later.  I feel so powerful (don't tell me if you already had the beads, let me live in my own little world).  In my order she also included another set of stitch markers and row markers that will be prizes for Cirque du Socks when it ends at the end of this month.

Aside from the wonderful family moments I had at the beginning of the week, this has not been the best week for family interactions.  Both BLING and I have had some pretty sizable family-related disappointments.  Writing this post about the sweet people in my life has reminded me that I am cared for outside of my most immediate family.  I am lucky to know  so many good and giving people.  Knit bloggers, and people who love them, ROCK!

Oh - I almost forgot...I'm knitting socks with yarn I spun myself!

A Pause for Station Identification

I have found myself rather busy this week with unexpected family visits and extra work related training.  I probably won't have time for more than this briefest of posts before Friday. 
Things to do while PinkPurlGrrl is away:
Congratulate Rachel and Lala on their recent nuptials, they used the same marriage commissioner as BLING and I did!
Congratulate Rabbitch on her benign breast badger - and her new house.
Visit Ryan and let her know that a week away is a week too long.
Check in on Kim and watch her adjust to her new obsession (socks on circs).
Keep an eye on Libby to make sure she doesn't get in too much trouble.
Don't forget to check out all of the beautiful socks being knit over at Cirque du Socks.

PS - I'm a little bit freaked out at the family visit.  I really love this cousin, but haven't seen him in about 12 years.  He knows about BLING, but the last time I saw him I wasn't out of the closet yet.  I think I was also about 60 pounds lighter.  Anyway, I'm much gayer and fatter than last time and that scares me.  {{{{going to my happy place}}}}

A Big Scare

Last night was just like any other night.  We pulled into the drive way, flirted with the dogs through the front window and let ourselves into the house.  Kiska (9 year old corgi/poodle) gets let out of our bedroom where she spends her day lounging on my pillow.  Mali (6 yo Greyhound), Oly (5 yo Greyhound) and Brody (2.5 yo lab/boxer) get let out of the "dog room" where they spend their day snoozing on blankets and cushions - and dancing for the mailman through the window.  There is barking and singing and rushing pell-mell for the back door where they are let out to do what dogs do outside.  I go back out front to fetch the mail, BLING lets the dogs back inside.

Except...last night I (unknowingly) didn't latch the front door all the way.  I wandered over to my lilac to admire its solitary bloom.  I heard (what I thought was) BLING come out front with Kiska.  Kiska can be trusted off lead, often she gets special free-time with us in the front yard.  The next thing I know Mali is streaking past me, leaping over the lilac and racing up the street.  I spin around - I hear dogs everywhere but it's a blur and I don't know who is where.

I did not latch the front door, it was my fault.  I didn't know this at that moment and I thought BLING had let the dogs get by her.  Not only did I let the dogs get out, but I yelled "What in the H#$% did you do that for!" as I ran to grab my keys.  I am a bastard.

I caught up with Brody (at the end of our block) and got him by his collar.  The greyhounds were no where in sight.  Kiska, being the good doggie she is stayed close.  BLING passed me chasing after the greyhounds.  I dragged Brody back into the house.  Normally he'd be a willing pup, but he could feel my stress and besides, Mali and Oly were off playing and he wanted to be with them.  He fought hard and I really struggled with him.  Every time he bucked around Kiska would run into the street and bark at us.  I'd call her and she'd run back, he'd buck and she'd head right into the street.  I was completely freaked out.  I got them inside and jumped in the car, rolled the windows down (to be able to listen for dogs) and took off after BLING.  A block away two workers had pointed BLING in the direction the Greyhounds had gone, they were headed for the only major intersection in our part of the city.  I drove past her, then decided we'd do better together and stopped the car.  We circled the block, she wanted to go further in the direction the guys had pointed.  We headed back that way and had nearly passed the parking lot of the grocery store when she spotted Oly.  I made a panic stop and whipped into the parking lot, coming to a stop 50 feet from a guy that looked like a football player who was carrying my 72 pound Oly.  Mali was not far behind, walking tentatively with a woman.

OK, everybody is safe.  Everybody is back together.  It's OK to breathe.

Oly wasn't hurt, Oly was being Oly.  When he isn't full-tilt running in the back yard - he's on his side on the couch.  Apparently he was done running and he wouldn't get up, he's not hurt - he's just Oly.  The guy was carrying him because he wouldn't get up.  Where did these dogs go?  To the grocery store, from what we can tell they actually went into the grocery store.  Maybe they had coupons?

From the moment they got out to the moment we got them home less than 10 minutes had passed.  Honestly it was probably about 4 or 5 minutes total.  They had gone 3 blocks and crossed a major (2 lanes each way) intersection, at rush hour.  Greyhounds can reach up to 35 miles an hour in 4 strides.  Even lazy lay around Greyhounds are really damn fast.  We are very lucky my mistake did not cost us our babies.  Please know this lesson has been learned.  Cookies for everybody.

Spinning again

It has been a while since I have spent any real time at the spinning wheel.  Part of my absence was due to the Knitting Olympics, I restricted my crafting to knitting only the wrap.  That much time spent knitting led my thoughts to other projects I wanted to knit, and after a while I really missed knitting socks and hats and other small projects.  Once done with the Olympics I remained in the knitting groove and the wheel sat mostly untouched for another month.  That changed this weekend after a trip to an east-side yarn shop where I found some hand-dyed roving for a good price.  I really wanted to spin this brightly colored stuff, I was excited to see what it would look like.  This is my first time spinning something that was multi-colored.  I chose to split the roving into 16ths (pencil roving size) and then predraft from there.  This kept the colors a little clearer, but I still got a nice smooth transition.  The actual colors are brighter (what looks like red is a nice clear orange).  I think I live in a dark house. 

Off topic slightly: dose anyone use an OTT-light?  Do you like it?  I keep getting the 40% off coupons for JoAnn fabrics and was thinking it might be a good thing to try. 

Back to spinning.  I am pretty impatient when in a self indulgent mood.  I didn't want to delay spinning the new fiber by finishing up the bobbin of coopworth that has been waiting for me.  I only have three bobbins and one is wonky so I use it only after I have spun up a bobbin that I intend to ply (I transfer the just-spun singles onto that bobbin and ply from there).  I had a partially full bobbin, an empty bobbin, and the wonky bobbin - so I just spun a thin single (hoping for fingering weight), then skeined it, set the twist and viola - 200 yards of multi-colored fingering weight yarn.

What should I do with it?