Inner Child and Inner Geek

I'm not quite sure what's going on with me the last couple of days, but in addition to the Lord of the Rings trilogy I am also watching Avatar, the Last Airbender series. I managed to watch an episode here and there on TV, but didn't catch the whole series. I am now watching it, start to finish online. Yippee!

My Inner Geekiness

Contrary to popular belief, I have a fairly wide geek streak going through me. I know, I know it is almost impossible to believe that someone as incredible cool as I am would have any geekiness in them, but.... what can I say. One example just occurred today. I went out to Target today during lunch and was wandering around the DVD section and found the Lord of the Rings trilogy on sale for a good price. I had been wanting to get the set for a while, but never really got around to it. Well, I have it now and I see an all day marathon in the very near future for me. Just me and a big bowl of popcorn; the Orthodontist be damned! I think it is only fair since I have read the books about 6 or 7 times already. I need to give the movies a fair shake, I've only seen them once. I'll probably end up banishing my roommates to their room that day and confiscating the living room since it has surround sound. They are not to interested in the whole Ring trilogy thing so I doubt they'd be interested in watching the entire series. Oh well, they'll get over it.

The only question now is Saturday, Sunday, or BOTH? Am I that ambitious? Hmmm.

Christmas Stockings part 2

Below is a picture of the next two stockings in my project. I am much, MUCH happier with these.

One project done and Christmas comes early

Here is a picture of the socks I just finished. They are currently happily residing on my feet.


I have decided to make Christmas stockings for the family this year. I figured I'd better get started early or I'd be in big, BIG trouble. I have to have all the family presents done by Thanksgiving. One of the drawbacks with making your own Christmas gifts is you have to start the middle of summer. By the time Christmas actually gets here, I am so over it.

Below is my first attempt. It did not turn out quite as well as I wanted, so I have fiddled with my basic toe-up sock pattern to make the next one look more Christmas-stockingey. (the white really is not that blindingly white, it is actually a soft "winter white".) My local AC Moore store had a clearance on the Moda-Dea Jai Alai yarn (the furry stuff at the top of the stocking, for y'all non-yarn people). At 1.00 a skein, I couldn't pass it up; I bought 6 skeins. I may go back and get some more. The great part is that I actually went in there looking for materials for Christmas stockings. Normally when they have stuff on clearance, it's not anything I'm interested in. I'm thinking of making regular sized stockings for my family and then a bunch of mini stockings as Christmas ornaments for everyone else. I'll have to see how everything goes.

Beer and Socks

Beer

We (the Marquise and I) just finished bottling our latest batch of beer today. Its an Irish stout, kinda, sorta Guinness-y. The Marquise wasn't to convinced last week when we started. The wort looked like tar and smelled almost as bad. We had some minor problems during fermentation again. There was a blow-out during the first 24 hours of the fermentation. Lucky for me, we do everything over at the Marquise's place, so I don't have to clean up any messes. I wonder if I'm pitching the yeast to early and the wort is just a tad bit to warm. The yeast gets a big, quick start and clogs up the air-lock. I may wait a little longer next time and let the wort cool a little more before I pitch the yeast. Maybe that will slow the process down just a tad. The bottling went fairly smoothly, however. The beer is a wonderful chocolate color and already has a nice smooth finish to it. It looks like a stout we had at Foothills Brewing in Winston-Salem last weekend on our way home from Grandfather Mountain. However, it tastes much better. I'm not a big fan of traditional stout beer. (They did however have some other beers that were more to my liking. They have a great Hefe and Bock!) It will be interesting to see how this batch ages.





Socks

I got tired of working on the black and white sweater and went out to the corner LYS to see what they had available for socks. I figured I should try again since my last endeavor ended with less than stellar results. (the ribbing along the top of the sock relaxed something fierce. I now have socks that resemble elf boots!) I found a fantastic hand painted yarn.... Heritage yarn by Cascade Yarns. Picture below. Cheap it was not, but it is a wonderful yarn to work with; good color and great feel. (probably why I got tired of the sweater, not fond of black/white and using acrylic yarn.) I am working on a toe-up pattern I got off the net. I actually got much further than this, but realized I had made a fundamental error at about this spot and had to rip it apart. Don't ask, it was one of those Duh! errors. Oh, well,

Baby Blanket Goose Bumps

The office had the surprise baby show for the grandmother-to-be today. Everyone was impressed with the blanket I made. What was really strange, however, was that the colors I selected were the exact colors that "mom" had set up in the nursery! Everyone wanted to know how I had figured that one out! I had to explain several times that it was just luck.

Just a bit strange.

Baby Blanket

I just finished my latest project. A baby blanket for a grandmother-to-be at work. Its a simple granny square blanket in blue, green and white. It turned out pretty well. However, I doubt that I will get the same yarn again. I have learned that not all acrylic yarn is the same. There are good brands and not so good brands. TLC Baby by Red Heart is a not so good brand. The yarn splits easily and it is not as soft and snuggly as some of the other brands. After a couple of washings and some fabric softener, it should become a lot more comfy, hopefully.

My next project is a sweater for one of my roommates. It's gonna be black with some white vertical strips. Horizontal strips are a lot easier. This will be the largest project I've done with vertical strips. Hopefully, I can get the strips on the front and the back pieces to match up when I put it all together!

My Blogiversary

Happy Blogiversary to me!
Happy Blogiversary to me!
Happy Blogiversary To MEEEEEEEEE!

Well, it's actually about 2 weeks late. The actual anniversary was June 21. But who's actually counting?