Books from Auburnchick

A fellow KH'er and blogger recently posted a list for book readers, that goes as follows:
Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones on your book shelf! Combine indicators as appropriate.
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee- saw a play too
The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Lord of the Flies- William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold-best Sebold book so far
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings- J.R.R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte-read about 50 times, have 3 different copies
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood-first Atwood book read at age 10
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert
I thought I would play along! you can too! just copy and paste to your blog, or copy and paste as a reply!
I don't know where she got the list, but doing good so far on it!

I suck at stealth knitting

DH never asks in a really committed way what I am knitting. He asks, I tell, he moves on. For some reason when I cast on for Sonic the hedgie, he wanted details. Dammit. Now sonic is not an xmas present. DH likes to follow the whole felting/blocking/stuffing process. Now sonic is early. Ho hum. What now???

Done, now to start the xmas knitting

The Summer swing jacket is done. The last of the knits, (fingers crossed behind back) for myself before the xmas holiday season. I modified a bunches, see other posts, and in the final photo you can see I added the Noro (gorgeous up close, really lovely colors) for the trim on the edges and neck. The neck I made is nothing at all like the pattern, but I like it more. And I added a vintage pin that I happend to have found a while back for the closure at the top. All in all a lovely sweater, but I will make it longer next time. I think the designer had smaller boobs than me.

oh, I found my diamond earrings in the sock drawer below where the earrings are kept. Me thinks a certain kitty person knocked them in there.

So now I am on to the holiday knitting. Eric, go read another blog. Lots of blogs to read. bye. mom too. other people to meet and greet. come back next week. I dont' think anyone else that I gave this bloggy address to reads this, but if you do, come back later and don't read this post. Seriously. I will open up a can of whoop ass.

Eric's knit is a hedgehog like Leo's was last year, only in sonic the hedgehog colors. I want to make mom a sweater, but time is getting a bit limited on the sweater. She may get Grumperina's odessa hat, with or without the beads, pending beady difficulty. Leo is definately getting the felted kitty, pending finding a black feltable yarn and piecing together the pattern.

So said, I did a proactive thing for holiday knitting I have never done before. I actually took out the patterns for the knits and put them all in a plastic bag with the yarn together as my "kit". They are all in my "wip" box. Now, whenever I need to start a new knit, the whole kit is there. I feel seriously brilliant right now. August, and I have holiday knitting kits. Someone congratulate me.

Finally proof of lots of money spent!

I got it today! wooo hoo! only took 4 months almost to the day but now I have a $20,000 piece of paper to go along with the $35,000 other piece of paper!

Now I just need a frame to hold it.

Stuffed catnip fishies

I started to work on the curtains for our front porch, got about halfway on Saturday and pooped out on Sunday after having to return 3 rods for 3 bigger rods. I have everything, I just need to finish the hem. So instead I made some cat toys.

The fishies are an old pattern I have, just the shape of a fish in a large size. So old i have to tape it a bit every time I use it. Same pattern I used for the fishies I made to donate to the 35 w bridge craft sale, but they sold to the crafty people before the sale started.

Mulder had more fun than Itchy so far. I had fun with the camera.

2nd time's a charm

I recast on the Summer swing jacket, and boy o boy am I glad I ripped her out and started over. All of the problems I had the first time I learned from, and I had the forsight to add the Noro to the bottom for the edging (thanks for the bday present mom!) It is the PERFECT yarn in the PERFECT color to add to this sweater. It has a weight to it that hangs the jacket nicely, and is such a great color, a blue-green in royal/dark hues to complement the light blue of the body. LOVE.

The only other mod I might make is to use a prettier frog closure for the neck part instead of the japaneese style wooden buttons.

In other news, Ravelry rocks! (Where I got the summer swing jacket pattern btw). I got a message from a fellow user who is making a sweater but is going to run out of yarn, but she searched and saw that I had some of what she needed, in the right dye lot and all, and asked if I could spare some.

On a side note-I truly believe in knitters karma. well, nice people karma, but knitters are the nicest of all. A few times in the last year or so, someone has posted on Knittinghelp.com that they needed/wanted/couldn't afford/had an accident/ etc, and I truly believe that in my state of having enough and not wanting for anything that if I have the means, I should help. I'm not rich or whatever, I'm just blessed. I am happy and content and even sometimes blissfull in my life, and I truly believe that because of that I should help others if/when I can. Because as we all know, this state of life might not last forever, and I may have to call upon others to help me. Even if it's for a certain dye lot of yarn. So I help when I can.

So, even though I love said yarn, (it's classic elite lush, a lovely blend of angora!) that I got for a steal, I happened to see the woman's page and that she really was doing a lovely job on her sweater. I almost wanted to give for free, but I'm not that rich!

In another weird note, she happens to be from minneapolis, so I told her to drop me a note when she comes next time. Small world!

I can fix a toilet

New skill, fixing a toilet. Discovered after $90 water bill.
The toilet was constantly running. Found out it was because the float wasn't working properly. Attempted to bend float to my will. Broke said part. Hmmm.... I seriously considered trying to duct tape back together.
Nice man at hardware store explained that replacing the whole inside part would actually be easier than trying to unscrew really rusted screws and replace just broke part. $11. not bad.
Got home, DH helped undo part to replace, popped in, adjusted a bit, and VOILA no more running toilet.
Tell me how much I rock.

I hate/love this sweater

Remeber the part in Grey's Anatomy when Meridith is giving Derek her "pick me" speech, and she gets to the part where she says something about "in a hate you love you way". Well, that's me this week. Enter Summer Swing jacket.

Looks pretty good huh? It's a pattern found on Ravelry, and oh the woes and loves that this pattern has given me.

The first woe was that the designer forgot to include the part about making 2 sleeves. I went with it, dutifully believing that designer had a secret I had yet to see. Nope. No right sleeve. Email designer. Oopsy, she forgot to add that part. Fine. Mad, but fine. Rip out sleeve, reknit with 2 sleeves this time.

Then I decided that midway thru the back and midway thru a row, that I was going to change to garter stitch. This is knit in stockinette stitch. Obvious difference. Whatever. It bugged me, but no way in heck or hell was I ripping out the whole back and sleeves. I considered adding a bow to hide it. Really.

That was about 3 days ago. Before I forgot how to tell the right side from the wrong side. My brain, in the middle of watching Ghost hunters international, decided to add the 2nd part of the right sleeve on the wrong side. yep. Second part of the sleeve was facing in toward the body, 1st part of sleeve out like an arm. How long did it take for me to figure this out? Until I only had about 4 inches left before seaming. 4 INCHES! out of 8 gazillion stitches, I realized this now.

Although this seems like the saddest knitting story of all, and yes, I was almost in tears last night, trust me, there is a happy/moral side. the love side. I realized that when you look at something and you realize it isn't how you want it to be, rip it out and start over. Seriously. (just the knitting of course, you can't rip out a husband, well, you can try, but not my idea don't hold me to it) Part of the way in I decided that the bottom was curling something awful and found this great yarn that my mom had given me for my bday last year and thought to add it as the bottom trim, but bottom was done. See above pic for lovely Noro yarn. Perfect color for this sweater. Love it. Then the back/garter stitch incident, and really, a bow would have just been stupid. Now this. Really. I should have just ripped the darn thing in the beginning. The knitting fates got me this time. I bow to them.

Happiness is doing it yourself

Another Sunday spent painting a shelf. I needed one more shelf for the big wall above the futon, and hadn't been able to find the right one. I had to go to the post office yesterday, and there is a little used furniture store next to it. I've bought lots of things in there, including the blue ceramic cats. I found a cute shelf, but it was green. No worries. I have PAINT! Besides, it was only $30.

Spent the morning painting and letting it dry, then hung. Put my prettiest not in use yarn on it and voila! Another lovely addition. I might have to stop now, running out of wall space.

I did spend about 2 hrs yesterday cleaning the crafty room, vacumming (which Itchy thought was the best thing ever. ) Itchy attacked the attachment hose and hissed at it, and even though the vacuum is in the closet NOT IN USE OR ON he is still intermittently attacking and hissing at it. Quite funny. I even got out the 409 and cleaned the floor under and the wall behind the pooper box. (it was gross).

You get pics of the shelf and a bonus of my knitting helper.

Do ya really wanna go there?

So at this place I work, there is another place that we share space-ish kinda with. That place has people that work there that come over to talk to our people sometimes. Well, there is this one person, DR so and so, dr s for short, that thinks and has always thought that it is his business to tell me how bad smoking is.
interjection time-I am 31 years old and KNOW that smoking is bad for me. I know this, I promise you. The problem is I am smart now and was stupid when I started. can't go back and unstupid me. Smart me has to deal with what stupid me did, and I choose to have my own thoughts about how to go about that. If you have ever been or are a smoker you know what I am talking about. If you aren't, and you think that you can just quit, stop talking to me.
Like dr s. Stop talking to me. One year before new years he kept insisting my resolution was to quit smoking. not a question, but a statement. When I showed up after new years and went outside he said "oh, resolution failed." Seriously? I didn't even set the goal and I've failed it? Did I miss something here?
Today he's sitting talking to someone that smokes, i walk by and he actually points at me and says "you're a smoker" um. yea dumbass. When did I ask you to tell me that? Did I forget and ask you to remind me somewhere? Dr S proceeds to spiel about whatever it is he wants to say about smoking. I leave. Seriously. Exactly where in his brain does he think that he can get away with passing judgement and making comments about a persons personal (aka breaktime) habits that he doesn't work with and doesn't even know the last name of said person? Exactly how perfect is dr s that he thinks that randomly offering his opinion to people he doesn't know except in passing is acceptable? Seriously?
If it were legal to hit people at work without getting fired, dr so and so would be right the freak up there.

Purged

Today I purged 3 full grocery bags full of clothes from my closet. only 3 items were Eric's. Yep. I totally decided on friday that no human being needs 2 closets and 4 drawers of clothes. Especially because I couldn't fit anything into any of them anymore and clean clothes just sat on top of the dresser. Really out of control, I know. I started in the craft closet because that's where I wanted to reclaim the most room. I needed to be able to stack more drawers in there. So everything went. I only saved 5 dresses and 2 skirts. then I went onto the bedroom. Mostly everthing hanging in the back went. About half the closet went. Really. Almost all the pants in the drawer went, some pajamas I don't wear, shorts in a size I have long since been able to even hope to be in one leg again, and tons of shirts that are just not neccessary to have. I got it all to a manageble point, still have tons of work shirts and pants, long sleeve tops and tees, jammies to last forever, and it all fits in the closet or the drawers, and I can even close the drawers.

Mind you, there is still a load in the washer, but I'm not perfect.

New knits

I've been knitting away. Finished 3 bags, 2 need to be felted still. See pics. Love the yarn. I think it's Lion Brand, but it's called felting. Definately needs a sweater shaver afterwards though.

Not spinning now, but working on a new knit, it's a simple short sleeved jacket with an asian inspired collar. Can't remember the name of the pattern now either. It's all stockinette, so it's a nice tv knit. I'm watching season 1 of the Tudors while I knit it.

I love the weekend. It's gorgeous outside, errands are run and done, have beer, knitting and tv. DH is happily playing on our new xbox 360. Life is darn good.