Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Up yours, global warming

Yesterday was beautiful, sunny and 60 degrees. Today, it suddenly snowed about an inch.

And here I sit, icing my rotator cuff.

On the bright side, got my sewing machine safely home and all set up. I'm going to do a few tests with my chosen fabric tonight to check my thread choice, maybe work on a mini version out of muslin to test the pattern I've worked out. I'm seriously pumped - I've got the book, the bookmark is just drying, all that's left is the bag, and that's maybe two days of work all together.

Hooray for early sending!

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Damn, Damn, *Damn*

No sign of the sewing machine. Got everything else done, I just need to do the bag and of course the machine has vanished. This wouldn't be all that big of a problem, but my swap partner's allergic to wool, so I can't just whip something up and felt it, and I'm not sure if I'll get my paycheck in time to just go buy a plain one to gussy up.

And it's not like I can borrow mom's machine. There's a reason she got me my machine for Christmas last year - nobody wants to use her machine. Except maybe as a doorstop. Even then, I imagine I'd trip over it and hurt myself. It tears thread to bits every three feet, the thing jams trying to sew two pieces of muslin together - something is horribly and profoundly wrong with that contraption.

Well, fingers crossed, maybe mine is still at mom's.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Damned Jinxification

Well, spoke too soon. Somehow, I seem to have misplaced my sewing machine. I thought I knew right where it was, but it turned out to be some of my photography equipment.

Words can not express just how much I don't want to have to sew a tote bag by hand. I've got tomorrow off, hopefully I can find my machine then - if not, I'm going to have to change my plan and just buy a basic bag to revamp rather than starting from scratch.

Fortunately, everything else is okay - just a little shopping I've got to do, and a touch of inspiration to wait for.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Daily Dose of Awesome

So, I'm all in for the Reading Rainbow Round 4 Swap on Craftster, and in my various and sundry travels through the interwebs preparing my swap package, I discovered that the Barnes and Noble website has at least one HP Lovecraft short story collection listed under the category "Religious Fiction"

That is just freaking awesome.

Also, not to jinx myself (ah, crap, I can feel it jinxing already), but this is the furthest ahead I've ever been on a swap. Granted, we only have to send three items, but I've already got two just about done, so at least there's only the one area that can *seriously* go wrong.

Geek ahoy!

I am the biggest geek ever. This short, fuzzy video clip should not make me go all tingly and tear up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RllSZW_YLk8

Monday, January 14, 2008

Back into the black hole...

So day before last, mom brought over a WoW game card for us. (she and my cousin recently lapsed back into the game, and decided they needed Tiwaz and me as well) After spending an entire day upgrading my computer, re-installing WoW, getting all the updates, and upgrading my character to Burning Crusade, I logged in.

I spent the next 15 minutes getting repeatedly one-shot killed by a couple of undead in the Southshore graveyard as I was attempting to hearth. Way to remind me why I stopped playing.

So, I got everyone else to come join me on my nice safe, happy PvE (normal) server.

I've got a lot of other games I should really be trying to get through, but World of Warcraft does have the advantage of providing me with some truly quality knitting time. Between griffin flights, boats, zeppelins, and trains, there's a lot of downtime where I don't feel justified in actually leaving the computer, so the knitting basket just goes next to the chair.

I've actually got two new patterns I'm just polishing up - they were supposed to be Christmas presents for co-workers, but since we got a new printer for Christmas, I've told them there's a slight delay while I type them up and format them nicely rather than giving them xeroxed handwritten sheets. I'll give them a chance to make the patterns first before I actually post them. (Well, one - the other one had enough time put into it that I'll actually be selling it on Etsy. But not for too much.)


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Now playing: Weezer - Simple Pages
via FoxyTunes

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Resolved!

So, my three resolutions for the New Year:

1. Keep the house cleaner so that guests coming over doesn't require a three-day sleep-free cleaning marathon, just a bit of tidying and a quick vacuum.

2. Get six months' worth of house payments saved and in an interest-bearing account

3. No more yarn may be bought until I meet one of two conditions:
a) sell $50 worth of stuff on Etsy
b) completely use up the contents of one yarn tote.