Good things come to those who wait... and... I always get what I want.

After a month of wating for news and dealing with crazy bankers, crazy realtors and crazy home buyers (yes, us, we're going crazy), we have withdrawn our offer on the house. We went back to look at the house Wednesday night. It was storming pretty good and had been raining on and off for about 24 hours. We walked up to the porch and peeked in the windows. The house was empty except for a tv, a spiderman chair, a pair of little boy's underwear, random cd's, toys and cleaning products and a crib full of stuffed animals. When we walked in the door, I looked up at where we noticed water damage stains the first time through the house. We had examined the roof (from the ground) and it looked as though the water damage had been fixed and should be water tight again... well... we were wrong. Wet Plaster. We wandered the house and things we hadn't noticed before were everywhere; evidence of past water damage in the basement, stained carpet, shotty (shoddy?) cabinets in the kitchen. Seeing the kitchen with no appliances was a shock too. We knew they were taking them, but actually seeing them gone was weird. Made us realize that yes, we are going to have to drop a grand on appliances if we get this house. So, after talking to the listing agent about all these problems, he said we would be buying the house AS IS, which means we would not lower our offer because of the problems we would have to fix. Nor would we be reimbursed. So, they can keep it. We have found something else that is actually exactly what I pictured myself in. We overlooked it at first in favor of a newer house, but it turns out that the newer house has more problems. We're writing an offer on Saturday. And there is just no way that this deal can take any longer than we waited for the previous one. So we hope to have an answer in less than a week, and have a closing date set for mid-July with posession at closing. Which leaves me plenty of time if I decide to not pack another thing until then... and I'll probably do that. That's the way I roll. I like to wait till the last minute.

Everything with the house seems to be falling into place perfectly. If the process had gone smoothly, we would have taken their word for the pool being "opened" (which does not mean brown, murky water with toads living in it, as is the case right now) and we wouldn't have known that the roof does in fact leak into the living room, we wouldn't have seen all the stains in the carpet, or the water damage in the basement, or the stench in the garage that was so bad, we couldn't go in there. We would have bought the house, closed on it next Friday, and then had to spend $1,000 on appliances, at least $3,000 on a new roof, more on new carpet, paint and who knows what else. It was so frustrating, time consuming and maddening, but now it is over and it's for the best. I do not feel bad at all about losing this house.

Wait, what did you say? This is a knitting/fiber art blog? oh yeah... ummm

• Skirt is done and seamed


• Socks are done, as seen in last post


• Heading toward the toe on sock 1 of the next pair


• Mentally preparing to start my first garment... one of the lace bottomed tank tops from the current Interweave Knits. pink/cream wool/silk blend. (I guess the skirt was my first garment, but it was easy.)


• I'm on a rail fence quilt kick too. I have ideas for about 5 more... those will probably wait till after the move though.

Boxes and Soxes

I have had quite a productive couple of days. I've been ADD packing all week. I got a jackpot of boxes from a local produce store and started randomly packing things. I have 4 big boxes of clothes that either don't fit or I just don't wear anymore. All are moving with me, I'll go thru them after the move. Hopefully we'll have enough crap for a garage sale. The rest of the boxes I've packed so far have books and fabric. Ryan was very happy to find out that I alternated fabric and books in each box. So they don't all weigh 50 pounds. (When I moved out of my parents house I packed a lot of books in BIG boxes. He could hardly lift them... he didn't think it was funny) So this time, anything that is packed too heavy for ME to lift, gets unpacked and redistributed.

I still feel like it is too early to start packing. My lease is up July 31st, so regardless of not having a signed contract yet, I have to move somewhere by the end of July; whether it is into our house, or into a storage unit and live at my parents' house for a couple weeks.

Friday I finished this pair of socks, yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit 7018. My first pair of socks knit on size 1's. I don't think it was any more tedius than any other sock I've done. I love the tiny tiny any way.

And the most exciting accomplishment this weekend, was the almost 5 hours I've spent updating my website. I have redesigned the entire gallery. Here it is, Textile Stockpile Gallery, let me know what you think. The store section is up next, There are a lot of pictures that need to be redone, and I want the whole website to have the same format, just like the home page and all the new gallery pages. I think the white background is much more aesthetically pleasing than the black, and I think keeping every page with the same color format, really makes it look better, like every page is part of the whole.

"ABC's" or "I'm bored"

Accent: Michigander. But the lower peninsula, so we don’t say “eh” after every statement. We sound like we talk thru our nose, and it’s usually stuffed from allergies.

Booze: Sex on the Beach, dark beer, cheap wine (the kind that just tastes like fruit juice).

Chores I hate: cleaning the bathroom and doing dishes.

Dog/cat: Dog. Allergic to cats.

Essential Electronics: everything. I’m a city girl, can’t do without my hair dryer, computer/internet, tv, iPod.

Favorite perfume: DKNY Be Delicious

Gold/silver: Silver or white gold

Hometown: Chelsea, Michigan

Insomnia: nope, gotta get my eight hours

Job Title: Office Manager

Kids: in the next 5 years or so I hope

Living Arrangements: moving out of my apartment and buying a house!

Most admirable trait: Conscientious and optimistic

Number of countries visited: only two. US and Canada

Overnight Hospital Stays: when I was born

Phobias: heights

Quote: "I am like no one in the whole world. I may be no better, at least I am different." Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Religion: None. Was not raised in a particular religion, but do believe in God, or some kind of higher spirit. I love to read about Greek/Roman mythology and the Hindu/Buddhist religions.

Siblings: one younger sister, Shannon

Time you wake up: 7am for work, my eyes pop open at 9am on the weekends

Unusual talent: can’t think of one at the moment

Vegetable I refuse to eat: peas, lima beans, brussel sprouts

Worst Habit: sitting on my feet and crossing my legs when I sit.

Xrays: Arm when I was in pre-school. An IVP in 2001, looking for kidney stones, found two… whoopee!

Yummy food I make: spinach/artichoke dip; cheese ravioli with chicken, zucchini and carrots; lots of stir-frys; Chocolate/Cinnamon biscotti

Zodiac: Aries

Don't I know you?

One night last week, my mom and I were in a Chinese restaurant. We were sitting in a booth along the wall, waiting for our food when the people in the booth in the corner stood up and walked past us toward the cahsier. One of the older men that walked by looked familiar...

Me: Where have I seen that guy?
pause
Me: OH MY GOD!!! I have seen that guy naked!
Mom: WHA?
Me: That guy standing at the counter, I've seen him naked! He was one of our Life Drawing models in school!
Mom: {Cringe} Oh god... I recognize him from your drawings!!!

We spent the next 10 minutes cringing and saying "ewwww!"

I suffered through that class. It was 15 looooooong weeks of drawing naked people and being ridiculed and tormented by the instructor.


Hey, I said I TOOK the class, I didn't say I was good at it.

The mark of the devil

Today is 6*6*6. I guess there are extremely pregnant women out there who are holding it in so their new baby won't have this 666 birthday. A lot of them had scheduled C-sections yesterday too. My first thought when I heard the date this morning on my way to work was, "damn... shoulda tried to conceive 9 months ago to try to get a kid with this birthday" He'd probably come out with screamin' red hair, black eyes and fangs. We could name him Lucifer. My sister had a boyfried who turned 8 on 8-8-88. Sorry for reminding you Shannon!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my apartment complex management for hiring a bunch of guys to spread mulch around all the trees and landscaping. I really appreciate being woken up at 6 am for four days in a row by semi trucks dumping loads of mulch into the parking lot outside my bedroom window and then the hours of bulldozers and trucks moving the stuff from the parking lot to the areas of landscaping. Oh, and don't forget the leaf blowers that blow the red mulch dust out of the parking lot. Really, I would gladly trade a couple hours of sleep every day to have a beautifully landscaped yard. Really. I mean it. A** holes.

I haven't blogged about anything interesting lately because I haven't really been sticking with any one project for more than an hour. Here's a run-down.

Sock: One sock done, 2nd sock is ready for heel flap

Whole cloth quilt: taking forever (hand quilting)

Skirt: knitting part is done. need to fold and sew drawstring area... doesn't sound fun, so it's been sitting in the living room for a week.

Modular scarf: DONE!!! and blocked!!!


But I did start a small quilt over the weekend. I was cleaning my sewing room a week ago and had piles of dyed fabric everywhere. I was organizing them by color and I ended up with a considerably large pile of purples. So without using my rotary cutter or mat, I cut strips of varying sizes of purples and put them all in a box. (a smarter person would have ironed the fabric before cutting it. I am not that person... I ended up ironing a box full of one-inch and smaller strips.)
Then the strips got sewn together in no particular order and not paying attention to keeping things lined up or at all even. As usual, I am a natural at keeping things even, so my un-evenness is subtle. Then the longer strips got cut into square-ish pieces and arranged on the design wall. Now it is almost all in one piece. It is hard because things don't line up like a grid, so I am having to do funky things to sew pieces into an uneven corner.


The original plan was to cut into each piece with a diagonal line or two and insert some avocado green strips, but I didn't like the way it looked. So I might machine quilt it with green. I love purple and green together.

My mind is just consumed with house stuff. We wrote an offer on a house we LOVE on Thursday the 25th. We still haven't heard anything. It is driving me crazy!!! When the realtor called me yesterday to tell me we probably wouldn't hear anything until FRIDAY, my heart sank and the rest of the evening I had that same sinking feeling you get when you get dumped out of the blue. Like a mix of depression, panic and anger.

It's just a house, it's just a house, it's just a house...

Jeopardy

I just now got around to uploading the pictures from this weekend from my camera to the computer. So here was our set up for jeopardy watching...

The view from Shannon's front door looking out onto the porch. As you can see, Leah was not as excited about this arrangement as Shannon and I were.

And the view from my seat on the porch.


Genius.

Whirlwind trip

We had a great weekend in North Carolina with Shannon! It was so sunny and warm and beautiful. We left very early Friday morning and drove straight thru to Asheville only stopping for fast food and bathroom breaks for us and the dogs. Here we are in my car before we left Ann Arbor. We tried to get a picture of all four of us in the car, but it turned out to be more of a portrait of Jada.

We got into town at about 6:30 and got settled in at Shannon's, then decided we all needed some exercise after sitting in the car for 10 hours. The dogs especially. So we went for a walk around Asheville to show Leah the huge gorgeous houses in the neighborhood. Then we headed out to Charlotte Street Pub for dinner at 10pm.

On Saturday we started out at Biltmore Village and went to the cute shops there (including Yarn Paradise!), then headed downtown to walk around a bit. We stopped for a rest and a smoke at this fountain. Saturday night we were at home, and it was so stuffy in Shannon's apartment, but so nice out on the porch, so we stayed out there. We wanted to watch Jeopardy though... So we rolled the tv stand to the doorway and turned it out toward the porch. The best of both worlds!!!

Later Saturday night we made Daquiris and sat on the porch for a good 6 hours. We played CatchPhrase for a long time, then just sat and chatted into the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday was Shannon's birthday. Remember that Knitting Olympics skirt that was to be Shannon's birthday present? Yeah, not done yet. We ended up spending most of the day sitting on her porch in the sun... well, they were in the sun, I followed the shade around. (I can not get a tan, it's impossible. I just go straight from pale to burnt.) At about 3 we were finally all ready to get out and do something. So we headed to the edge of town to a yarn store that we hadn't been to yet. When my mom was down there last week she and Shannon tried to go and it was closed. The hours were not posted on the door, it just said, "Tuesday and Saturday" Above the Closed sign. Who knows what that means, because they were there on a Tuesday and it was closed, and we were there on a Sunday and it was closed. So that was a bummer. Next we took the dogs to a park that had plenty of room for them to run around off leash for a while. We found a big stick and threw it for Billie. She even helped us get it off the tree. After we thoroughly exhausted the pups and worked up a good appetite, we took the dogs home and headed to a great restaurant called Provence 620. It was SO good. Seafood is totally different in North Carolina. Shrimp is a completely different flavor there than it is in Michigan. Probably because it hasn't been dead and frozen for so long before you eat it like it is in Michigan.

So we stuffed ourselves there and headed home to watch RENT! All three of us sat on the futon and knitted while we watched RENT. We had inteded to get to bed somewhat early, so we could get up early again on Monday to get on the road. Well, Midnight turned into 3am... and we weren't in bed yet. We got about 3 hours of sleep before waking up at 7:30. We were on the road at 8:20. Shed a few tears on the way out of the driveway and headed north.

And now I'm at work. That is all I'm going to say about that.

It's Thur-Fri-sday!

Today is my Friday. Leah will be on her way to Ann Arbor late tonight then tomorrow we are getting up before the sun, packing ourselves and her two dogs into my little car and heading south to visit Shannon in Asheville. One more time before she moves north again. It's going to be a short trip. We will spend one day in the car, two days in Asheville and one more day in the car. Totally worth it.

But tonight, before all that happens, Ryan and I are meeting with our realtor to write an offer on a house. We could not be more excited about this house. It is just perfect, we both loved it immediately and only saw it for the first time yesterday. I won't say anything more about the house because I am SOOOOOO afraid that I am getting too excited about it before we even write an offer. Don't want to jinx myself.

There will pictures and stories when I return.

Moebius... felted

Mark this day on your calendar folks. Today is Monday May 15th, 2006. I am 26 years, one month and four days old, and I plucked my first grey hair this morning. No, I did not take a picture. It's sitting on my bathroom counter. If it's still there when I get home today I'm going to drop it in a lit candle or maybe put it in the garbage disposal.

I felted the moebius basket yesterday and it looks great!!! I am definitely going to use the extra ball to make a second one. Mom wants to learn to make it, so I'll wait and start it when I teach her. Hopefully some time this week. I finished one sock on Saturday and started the 2nd one Sunday morning before heading out for the "tour of mothers". We went to my parents house first and had lunch and talked about the houses we saw on Thursday and Saturday (5 total). We stuffed ourselves with steamed cauliflower and carrots, green bean and asparagus bundles (wrapped with bacon of course!), mozzerela cheese sticks and weenie-tots (pigs in a blanket... sausages wrapped in crescent rolls. So bad, but sooooooo good). We ended up eating later than expected and had to leave before the brownie cheesecake happened.

Then we drove to Ryan's sister's house to watch her two kids while she cooked dinner. I was so stuffed already from a late lunch that I only ate half of an enchilada for dinner. I just couldn't fit anything else in there. So we sat and chatted and played with the kids and I got to knit for a while. It was a fun Sunday.

The past two or three weeks have been stuffed full of house hunting and meetings and driving around looking for For Sale signs and checking out new neighborhoods that I have hardly had time to do anything else. I went right from being busy with school to buying a house. I'm not complaining, it's one of the most exciting things I've ever done (so far), but tonight I am taking the night off. I HAVE to go to the grocery store. I really should have gone Friday. I am down to frozen dinners, canned soup and peanut butter. I had the last two pieces of bread this morning, I have no milk, no eggs, no CHOCOLATE.

I have a new favorite house. Of all the houses we've looked at, this is the first one that I can picture all our stuff in and I can close my eyes and picture where a christmas tree will go, I can see me cooking dinner in the huge kitchen, I can really picture myself hanging out in the 2 person jacuzzi tub, but that's a given. This is the first house we've seen that needs absolutely no work, we could move right in and not touch a thing until we have a kid or two and need to add on another bedroom. It does need a new garage for Ryan, but what is already there is usable for a while. Unfortunately though, we think it might be too small for us. So we are going to go look at it again on Tuesday and also going to see two more in the same town. One of those is a similar style and age, but a lot bigger. Previous owners have already added on a few times. It has five bedrooms and 2 baths and it will need a new garage also. I so so so hope that this is the perfect house for us. I love going to look at houses, but I am so anxious to finally have one and start packing and moving stuff over!

knitting goes quicker when you're not feeling guilty about what you're not doing

All I did tonight was knit. hahahahahahahaha, I love it! no responsibilites other than just entertaining myself. ahh... the life of a college graduate.

I Finished Moebius basket (except for felting) and only used one skein of yarn. I bought two for the project, so maybe I'll make another one and have a pair.
Maybe it isn't a basket...

Screw renting, let's BUY!

It's the ultimate shopping trip. The most expensive thing we'll ever buy in our lives, but the most exciting. After only viewing one house to rent, but many many calls on others we have decided that renting sucks. We have a realtor, and are shopping for a lender. We looked at 3 houses last weekend and are looking at 4 tomorrow. We only have 2 months to look and one month to do the money, paperwork, closing and inspections. So we are spending all of our free time on this.

Saturday we met with our realtor and saw three houses. We were done at about 4:30 and had planned on going to my parent's house for dinner. So I asked Ryan if he just wanted to go straight to my mom's or if he wanted to drive around. He said he wanted to go drive around Dexter, because he has never been there and if we are considering buying a house there, he wants to go see it. I said, "you've been to dexter, that's where we went to look at that house that didn't have any appliances in it, and that's where we went to the Dairy Queen and walked to the park with the river." and Ryan said, "yeah, but I never paid attention". So we drove to Dexter, I showed him the downtown area, where the hardware store is, grocery, pizza place, you know, all the important stuff. Then we drove up and down the blocks looking at houses and then he said, "are there any roads that just go out into the country?" So I showed him what roads lead out of town to other places he knows and we drove around a subdivision with $500,000-$600,000+ homes and that took us out to a road that would lead us the really long way back to my mom's. So at 5:30 I called my mom to tell her we were going out to drive by one more house and would be there for dinner in about a half hour. She said that she'd fire up the grill because we were having the best hot dogs on the face of the planet. So we drove out the long dirt road to drive by the house on 4 acres that would need way too much work and is just too far away from, well, everything. So we ruled that one out and headed back to my mom's. We pulled into the driveway, I grabbed my sheets out of the back seat that I had brought to wash while we were there, and went into the house. Dakota ran at us, always so excited to see anyone walk through our door. I walked into the dining room and saw my dad standing there with the video camera and heard, "SURPRISE!!!!!!!!" My mom had been planning this surprise graduation party for a week. Shannon came home for it, Leah was there, my grandma and an aunt and uncle, a cousin, my friend Bekkah and her son Kahner (who I was knitting a hat for, but his head grew faster than the hat did) and Ryan's parents were all there. Ryan was in on it. I was telling Shannon later that night, "wow, Ryan sure can lie well... I don't think I like that." Leah was giving me hints up and down and all over the place and I didn't put it all together. I really was completely surprised and had absolutely no idea anything was going on. it was great!

Leah stayed with me Saturday night and she taught me the Moebius cast on. When I was visiting her in Grand Rapids in April, we went on a mad knitting shop dash. We found the best yarn shop and walked in about 5 minutes before they closed. We just needed to buy some needles, so we were going to run in and run out because we saw that they were actually open on SUNDAY, so we planned on just coming back the next day to really do some damage. On our way over to the corner with all the needles, there was the cutest little felted basket sitting there. We oogled it and fondled it and ooo'ed and aaaaa'ed. The lady told us the pattern is from that book there, so leah snatched it up, asked how much yarn you need for the basket and we ran around the store looking for wool. We each each got enough yarn to make a basket, leah grabbed the book and headed to the counter to pay. We got home and read over the pattern and found that we needed a 60" circular for the cast on. We were SOOOOOOO disappointed because we had wanted to get started on it right away and it looked like a quick project that we could do in one night and even felt them before I left on Sunday.

So while Leah stayed with me this weekend, she taught me the cast on that we've been waiting to learn since that weekend. I've been bugging her to take the book in to her yarn shop and ask them to help her cast on. When she knew she was coming to my surprise party she went around to the different yarn shops to get help on it so we could do it together while she was here!

What a great weekend!!!

Final Grades

Final grades have been posted for my LAST semester. I got an A on my final test in physics. Pretty amazing considering how the semester started out, with the crying and all.

it's great to slow down and breathe

**sigh** I have just been so busy lately that I have not had time to blog... Just kidding, I've been so busy NOT going to school and NOT doing homework and NOT studying and NOT working on projects under a deadline. It's great!!!

I've been knitting and watching tv and hanging out with family. I gave my apartment a real good once-over and cleaned the hell out of it. I had been accumulating all kinds of papers and piles of stuff everywhere, stacks of junk mail to deal with later, huge piles of wunder-under release paper, tiny scraps of fabric that got thrown on the floor and then tracked into other rooms. Pay stubs and deposit receipts from months ago, all kinds of rental ads, and drawings of things I want to sew or knit. The only thing I've really kept up with is the laundry. Which is amazing because I have to leave the house and drive 20 minutes to do it.

I had my physics final on Friday and I think I did really well. I definitely passed and I think I at least got a B on it. Which means I'll still get an A or a high B+ for a final grade. Wahooooooo!!! I guess all that crying and frustrtion in the beginning was worth it. As for my textiles grade, who freakin' knows. I'll let you know when I find out though. I'm guessing it'll be another week before grades are posted online.

Ryan and I have been apartment hunting, and we looked at our first one on Friday. It was a little house on the back half of an old couple's property, out in the country. It was a beautiful lot, with a view of the lake and lots of trees and flowers (and mosquitos). The old couple took us out and opened it up, it must have been closed up all winter, and possibly even longer, because it was pretty musty and stale in there. I would guess the place was about 800 or so square feet on the main level with two bedrooms, bath, kitchen, small dining room and a living room with a screened porch. Plus it had a full basement with a half bath, laundry hook-ups, a garage that can't be used as a garage becuase they caulked the door shut (wha...?). and the upper 1/2 story was mostly finished attic space that was large enough to be a bedroom if you don't care that the walls were made of cardboard stapled to the beams to hold the insulation in. (which really, I was just glad the place was insulated). So, the old crotchety lady showed us around the place, showing us every detail of the house and where she keeps extra 50's style drapes and storm windows and extra screws and instructions for appliances and who knows what else. All the while her sweet old husband was busying himself in the kitchen, smiling. He was a cool old guy, reminded me of my grandpa on my dad's side. So, she showed us everything and we were standing in the empty living room and she said that she didn't know what else to tell us about the place and "I would expect you would want to know what YOUR responsibilites are." She gave us about half a second to respond before she said, "well, I don't see wedding bands..." That's when I said, "no" and giggled, because in my experience, people say that and are just egging us on, ya know. It's something old people say, but don't care about the answer, just to get a rise out of us. So, she leaned up against the wall, crossed her arms and said, "well, that will be a problem, I am an old fashioned woman..." Ryan didn't give her a chance to finish her sentence, he looked at me, pointed to the door and said, "ok, you ready to go?" I said yes and we politely thanked them for their time. We walked back to the car with our arms around each other and said mean things about them. heh heh.

Now we are calling ourselves "new fashioned".

Hey look, she CAN finish something she started!

I finished my little bag and felted it on Saturday, here is the before/after shot. The colors in the after picture are accurate. It was a fun and quick knit. I even have a whole skein of Manos that I didn't use, should I return it? I'd have to drive ALLLLLLLLL the way to Grand Rapids to return it... Yeah right, I'll NEVER EVER return yarn.



Last night I also finished Red Striped Rail Fence. The pic I took of the whole quilt looked exactly the same as before it was quilted, so here's just a closeup.

Last ever textiles class is tonight. It's a wierd feeling, I'm pretty excited about it, but at the same time, it's nice to have all that space and freedom and some kind of deadline and goal. I guess now I get to learn how to motivate myself to get things done.

I was over at my parents' house on Saturday, hanging out and doing laundry. I brought Shannon's skirt with me to work on, since it is my only WIP now, I did two whole rounds on the thing which took at least 45 minutes. I don't know how many stitches it has now, but it's a lot and there are still one or two sets of increases to do before it is done. Well, my mom had just finished a pair of KnitPicks socks, and didn't have another project lined up to work on. So, me, being the BRILLIANT and GENEROUS daughter that I am, gladly sacrificed my own project to give her something to work on. So, the skirt is in her trusted hands. HAHAHAHAHAHA... I cast on a sock on Sunday! I just can't not have a sock in progress. Add it to my list of weaknesses. I am using the dusty brown Pima/Tencel yarn for the main sock and the lilac color for the toe and heel, and probably a stripe at the top. (see yarn in this post, upper left corner) Pictures to come, it's less than an inch long right now, so I didn't take a picture.

Are you all using the Blingo search engine? It is SO cool! I have won three times, three separate $10 iTunes gift certificates. (and I've never gotten any spam from them) It's sponsored by Google, so you'll get the same results as if you were searching with Google, but instead you use Blingo and maybe win a prize! There are bigger and better prizes than iTunes too, you could win an iPod Nano, or a $25(or more) Visa Gift Card. The last iTunes gift cert. I got, I used it to buy an album on iTunes that I wouldn't have spent money that wasn't free on, Michael Nesmith and the First National Band, "Nevada Fighter". I bought this album (yes, on vinyl) in high school when I was going thru a pretty heavy Monkees phase (circa 1995 or so), so I thought I would put it on my iPod for a little memory-lane action.

I can see the finish line

Tomorrow night is my last critique, then we will bring all our stuff in again next Tuesday if we need to do more work on it over the weekend. And next week I have one more physics class and then the final. And that is it. The end. Finished. I dun gradiated colledge.

So here is what I am taking to the critique tomorrow, I'm calling it "Red Striped Rail Fence" Title subject to change pending appraisal of it's cheesiness. (I always think my titles are cheesy and have considered just having a billion "untitled" pieces.)


and the detail shot


I haven't shown any pictures before now because I only JUST figured it all out at about 8:00 tonight. I am pretty pleased with it. I'd like to do another one, pieced maybe instead of fused, and I'll dye gradations specifically for it, these aren't perfect gradations, but they work.

I started to take some pictures of my sewing room after this week of frantic "gotta get a freakin' quilt outta all this fabric I dyed" fusing, but I am too embarrased. it's bad. Real bad.

In knitting news, the latest socks are finished and have been worn, but not washed yet. Hand wash only ya know.
Started on the felted bag with the green and maroon Manos. It's almost done, needs a front pocket and a strap. Then I'll felt it this weekend. After that is done, it's the skirt, and only the skirt.
I Candice, do take you Olympic Skirt in a monogomous knitting relationship. I promise to work with you until you become the beautiful skirt I know you can be. I promise to knit around and around for what will seem lilke an eternity and then knit some more, purl too. I promise to be faithful. I will not cast on socks. Even though that Twizzle is SCREAMING to get some action, you are my one and only knitting project. God help me.

Oh and skirt, I hope you know there will be a frenzy of dpns and sock yarn the minute I'm done with you, so, you know, don't get too upset.

Thank you all for your nice comments regarding Olive. Honestly I expected at least one a** to comment saying that I did the wrong thing and I am a horrible person. And I guess if that is what you do think, thanks for keeping it to yourself. And I'm sorry to those of you I made cry. T'wasn't my intention.

It's time to tell the story

Today is the day the finalists of the Quilting Arts Magazine Calendar Contest are announced. I have changed the homepage on my browser to the Editor's blog, where the finalists will be posted, and am checking it obsessively. Whether I make it or not, I thought today would be a good day to finally tell the story of my entry. This is what I wrote and sent in with my entry. I've added pictures for the blog that were not included.


In December of 2004, I decided I was ready for my first dog. I started reading as much as I could about training puppies, comparing different breeds and talking to people who have had experience raising good dogs. My boyfriend Ryan and I went to the Detroit Humane Society the day after Christmas. We walked past rows of cages with adult dogs in them, and could see down the hall there were cages with animals that would not be adopted for one reason or another. We found our way to the puppy room, it was a small room with stacks of cages against three walls, there were quite a few litters of puppies that were 6 weeks old, and only a few puppies that were older. The top left cage caught my eye. A 12-week old female, white with huge black ears was whining and wagging her tail, so excited that we were talking to her. We grabbed her paperwork off her cage and went back up front so we could take her out and play with her. The employee took her out of the cage and we went into a little room where she jumped all over us and licked our faces and was so happy. I loved her instantly. We kissed her and put her back in her cage and told her we’d be back in a couple days. Back up front I took care of the paperwork and was told to come back on Wednesday, after she had been spayed and given the routine veterinary care.

We went back on Wednesday to pick her up, I think we waited in that waiting room for hours and hours, but it was probably only 15 minutes. A doctor came around the corner holding my puppy and I could see that she recognized me. Her tail started wagging and her ears laid down against her head. As soon as the doctor put her in my arms she peed all down the front of me. I got some final instructions and signed more paperwork and we were on our way home.

The first week was rough. That may be an understatement. The first week was a nightmare. I had no idea what I was doing. I had taken the week off work so I could stay home and get my puppy, who I had decided to call Olive, acquainted with her new surroundings. I spent a lot of time on the phone with my mom, my sister, and with Ryan, usually crying. I was having feelings like I had made a mistake. I didn’t know how to raise a puppy. I wanted to work in my sewing room, but every time I sat down, Olive peed on the floor, whined or needed some other attention. I don’t know what I was expecting; I guess I thought puppies slept a lot. This one sure didn’t. At the end of the week I had decided to stick with it, to keep working with Olive and she would be the best dog ever.

The next couple months brought lots of good things, along with bad. She was potty trained by the age of 4-1/2 months; she hardly ever chewed anything she wasn’t supposed to; she could sit, lie down, come when she was called and we were working on ‘roll over’.

Olive was about 8 months old when the aggressiveness started. It started with just some barking, whether we were outside with another dog in view, or inside looking out at another dog outside. The barking developed into growling and snarling. It got so bad that when she would sit by the window and see another dog outside, she would jump all over the window, sending the vertical blinds all over the place. At first, I would pull her by the collar and talk to her calmly. After a while, when I reached for her collar during one of these “freak-outs”, she would turn and snap at my hand. I refused to let her become the alpha dog in this house, so I kept pulling her back and was more firm with her especially when she snapped at me. Nothing worked. After about a month of this, and three separate attacks on Dakota, the 10 year old German Shepherd Husky mix at my parents house, we were on a walk with Olive and happened to pass by a woman in front of her house. Olive started barking at her dog through the fence, and this struck up a conversation with the woman, who happened to be a dog trainer. She worked with Olive for a few minutes and thought she could be a good dog with the correct training. As the woman was talking a man with two Jack Russell Terriers walked by. Olive, predictably, stood on her hind legs, barked and snarled and leapt at the dogs across the street. The woman stopped mid-sentence and just said, “oh my”. I told her how often that happens and that she has started to snap at me and other people who take care of her. Her unfortunate recommendation was to have her put down. Dogs with that much aggressive tendency are just not safe.

As we continued on our walk, I talked with Ryan and my parents, but no decisions were made. I was assured that they would be there for me whatever my decision was. I wrestled with every possible option available, but could only think of one thing. What if Olive hurts someone? I knew I could not keep her, but if I took her back to the Humane Society, she would be adopted to another family, possibly with another dog or small children. I couldn’t let that happen, so I made the awful decision to have her put down.

The morning of June 22, 2005 I left for work after a lot of kisses and scratches and hugs for Olive and quite a few tears. My mom came shortly after I left and took Olive home with her. My dad picked her up and took her to the vet. He had already made arrangements so that they could come in the back door, where she wouldn’t come in contact with any other animals. As soon as the vet laid eyes on her he told my dad he could see why we had been having so much trouble.

It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Olive was my responsibility. I volunteered to be her sole caretaker and give her everything she needed. I felt like such a failure, I would look around at other people walking their dogs and get sad and jealous. So many people have dogs, what is wrong with me that I couldn’t keep mine? But I have slowly realized that it wasn’t my fault. I did everything I could to keep her and take care of her so she could have the best life, and so that I could have a great companion as well. But I see now that sometimes, no matter how hard you try; some things just can’t work out the way you want them to.


My quilt is a portrait of Olive sitting in her favorite spot by the window keeping watch over the yard. I used hand-dyed fabrics and some commercial fabric and over-dyed commercial fabric. It was fused and then hand and machine quilted.

One over a quarter century

I made it past the quarter century mark. At 10:22pm EST I turn 26.
So far, I've gotten cards from Ryan's family, and two skeins of sock yarn from his mom Gayle. She knows me so well. The card on top there is from Ryan's 3-1/2 year old nephew Joey, he told me he picked that card out for me because that possum is smiling. He had the cutest little grin on his face and was bashful and so proud of himself at the same time. adorable.

Saturday was Joey's little sister's baptism and at the last minute we decided we should bring a gift, and hey, why don't I make her a rosary. So this was my Saturday...

• 9am wake up with knitting pattern in head and have to sit in bed and knit for a while to test it out


• 9:30 get up and dressed, go to Ryan's to pick up his dad's rosary that I was going to take apart and use the cross and mary part for Matteson's rosary, and so I could get the number of beads right


• Stick around and talk cars with Ryan and my dad... well, not so much talking on my part, but listening and thinking about how cute it is to watch my dad and Ryan hang out and work on Ryan's car


• 11:45 leave Ryan's and go to Bead Store. I decided at the last minute it might not be a good idea (karma-wise) to take apart someone else's rosary. I got lots of good advice and bought new findings for the rosary and pretty glass beads, even though I probably had everything I needed already at home (minus Mary and the Cross)


• 1:00 get home, gather rosary ingredients and metal working tools and ipod. I did not buy any eye pins or any findings, all the pieces were twisted and cut from sterling silver wire. each bead has it's own little link, hand made by me. Only the best for our little Matteson.


• 3:15 finish rosary, whip off iPod and clothing and get in shower, get dresssed, do hair and makeup, put on shoes and grab a bag of pretzels (didn't have time to eat) and get in the car to go to Ryan's and then to the baptism.


• got to Ryan's right at 4:30, he got in the car and we headed to the Church

I just got back to work; I met my mom and dad at Panera for lunch and I got another present! Knitting Rules, by Yarn Harlot! Wahoooooo! I guess this means I have to finish "Secret Life of a Knitter" right quick. Tonight I have school and then Ryan and I are going out with another couple to Applebee's for $2 beers and 1/2 price appetizers. I'm a cheap date. Unless we're going to a yarn store.

Success with Remazols!

A week or so ago I did some more work with the remazol/reactive dyes and this batch turned out pretty darn well, as far as the process actually working correctly. The colors did some funky stuff, which is to be expected with this process.
This picture shows four different designs. Starting on the left, I painted the fabric with green remazol (liquid reactive dye from Pro Chemical) mixed with Basilen Fixing Agent (by Jacquard, not sure yet where we buy it, it is supplied to us at school, I'll have to find out before the end of April and the free supplies (aka school) is over for good), oh, mixed in print paste and soda ash too. After that was dry, I mixed up a chartreuse, yellow orange and grass green and used my finger tip to dab it on randomly onto the green... as you can see, green remazol + green reactive = blue.

The next piece has two different designs on it. I painted it with the turquoise remazol first, then mixed up three different shades of blue/purple reactive dyes. The colors on this one turned out exactly as planned. On the left side of the fabric, I used a squirt bottle to just randomly squirt all three colors all over the fabric, and then used a plastic fork to move the dye around and mix it up. On the right side, I used the squirt bottle to make swirlies. These both turned out really well, the halo effect is very cool between the reactive and remazol. should have taken a close up... maybe I'll add one in the next post.

The third piece, all the way on the right was not at all what I expected. I painted it black with remazol, then used GREEN to make big leaf-ish shapes all over, just with my fingers. Then went back and put some of the yellow orange down the center of each shape. So, yet another funky and unexpected outcome: black remazol + green reactive = purple.


These are just some fabrics I already dyed a while ago that I overdyed. Far left was bright green and fuschia, I got it wet and scrunched it into a container and poured diluted bleach over it (like the low water immersion technique). Then once I saw it was acutally doing something, I took it out, rinsed it and put it in Anti-Chlor for 5 minutes and then washed/rinsed it out. The middle one started out a light brown/tan low water immersion and then I did low water again with a reddish brown that is now more red-orange. And on the right is the same light brown/tan low water fabric that I screen printed with purple.


These are 2 6-step gradations between green and blue. I sorta forgot that when you mix blue and green you get turquoise. I'm not a huge fan of turquoise, but I'm sure I'll use these for something. I used the instructions from Elin Noble's book, Dyes and Paints. Except I do mine flat on the table with a paint brush, instead of standing in front of 6 buckets for an hour stirring them all.

That's all I have for ya at the moment. Just wanted you to know that I am actually doing stuff when I say I have school at night.

maybe more than you bargained for

How far would you go to use a 20% off coupon at a really great yarn shop? 25 miles? 100 miles?

What if you had a "20% off your whole purchase" coupon for a yarn store that was 614.3 miles away from home? Is it worth almost 10 hours in the car (one way) plus about $40 worth of gasoline, at least two fast-food/on the road meals, and a sore ass? I still want to say YES! sign me up! when do we leave?! Besides, travelling and shopping helps the economy, I haven't seen Shannon in a month and the yarn shop in question just happens to be less than a mile from her apartment, and the most important argument, I NEED more yarn.

*** WARNING***change of subject with no segue***

So last Saturday I went to see a psychic. This was not a cheesy, read your palm, crystal ball gazing, tell your future type psychic. She is a "metaphysical counselor". It was such a fun and eye opening, emotional, goose-bump inducing, tear producing experience. It was an hour of her telling me some things I knew about myself already but maybe weren't obvious, she introduced me to two of my spirit guides, I learned just a little bit about past lives, my relationship with my immediate family and something about this "power" she kept referring to that apparently I have but am afraid to use. That part confused me. She told me I am an old soul, and that this is definitely not my first lifetime as an artist.

Of course, I have been thinking about everything she said a lot and coming up with SO many questions I want to ask next time. So much so that I want to make an appointment to see her again, like, RIGHT NOW. I want to ask about Olive and why that experience happened to me and why it had to turn out the way it did and what I was supposed to learn from it. (I realize I have never really explained the whole Olive situation, it will come. in due time.) I also want some help with my headaches, and I wonder if she could help me with that. I have questions about what she told me in our session on Saturday about the greif I carry and how I can heal it. She told me that I have a "long thread of grief running through my emotional core" and that it is old and not necessarily mine. She said I have a way of "helping" people grieve, but it's not much help for them or me because I take it from them so that I have to deal with it, and they can't deal and get over it. That may sound like foooey, but it totally makes sense to me. I am always the first one to start crying... even BALLING at funerals, movies, tv, radio commercials... seriously, On-Star commercials should not make me cry, but they do, and it doesn't matter what day of the month it is. The best example of this is when Leah's mom Michele got sick, and sicker and passed only 6-months later, I was a wreck. I couldn't even tell my boss and co-workers I'd be gone the day of the funeral because I would lose it and look like a bumbling idiot trying to get the words out. So I had to email them, and I even asked in the email, tactfully, but with the basic message being, don't try to talk to me about it. Most of them complied; others didn't and got the bumbling idiot I knew would come out. Of course I am sad and miss Michele, but I think bigger than that, was that I can so easily put myself in someone else's place, that I was feeling Leah's grief. I was worried about her and how she would handle it and get through it. And of course want to help her in any way I possibly can. As soon as I saw her speak at the memorial, of course I cried through the whole thing, but I felt better after because I knew she would be ok. Wow, this is going off to a place I wasn't prepared to post about. I guess I'll just finish it up with, Leah, I am sorry I took some of your grief from you and I apologize in advance for giving it back to you, when I figure out how.

That was a little too heavy for a fiber art/knitting blog, dontcha think? So, let's end with some appropriate content. School tonight, dying gradations and color ranges for the impending quilt. I think it'll be a tree... that's the idea in my head at the moment. I was working on some Remazol/reactive dyes for the quilt, but they didn't turn out like I thought. So they'll probably get scrapped. (just not used for this project, not thrown away or anything, who do you think I am?!) I'd like to do some potato dextrin and a little more remazol this semester, but I think I'll proabably run out of time. Critique is the 20th, so that is coming real quick!

Well, now what?!

One of the many things I've been drooling over lately is some Twizzle sock yarn by Mountain Colors. I've drooled over ebay listings for $18 plus shipping, I've touched it and squeezed it and rubbed it on my cheek at Flying Sheep in Ann Arbor... but the price of $21 for a pair of socks just seemed too much. I've searched for other places online that might sell it for cheaper, but no luck. So I just kept drooling... until yesterday when I had a realization. I went to a yarn shop with Leah on Saturday with the intention of getting two skeins of Lorna's Laces that I've also been drooling over for quite some time. When they didn't have any colors I liked (was holding out for either Motherlode or Tuscany and all they had was camouflage) I bought $50 worth of Manos del Uruguay solid(ish) colors for a felted bag instead.
Then we went to another yarn shop on the other side of Grand Rapids and they didn't have Lorna's sock yarn either, except for two skeins of the bee stripe socks and one lonely skein of Iris Garden. So I wasn't going to get anything, until I spotted the Twizzle. This store had a whole shelf full of it, at least 3 different colorways. I picked up one skein at a time, of each different colorway and squeezed. I must have this yarn today. but... $22 for a pair of socks? then I realized that Lorna's is between $9 and $11 (depending on what store you are in) for one skein... and me, being the math and physics wizard that I am, now understand that two skeins of Lorna's is the same price as one skein of Twizzle. And you only need one skein of Twizzle for a pair. TA DA!!! I now own one skein of Twizzle sock yarn in the colorway Elderberry.
But... now what? I have to find something else to drool over. That shouldn't be hard though.

Ok, ok... You got me, I am still coveting and drooling over the Lorna's Laces in Motherlode (and Tuscany). I can't help it. I am addicted to sock yarn... and I know I'm not alone. It is just the most perfect thing. You know exactly how much you'll need without having the pattern with you. Socks are relatively cheaper to make than a sweater or sometimes even a scarf. And they are useful, especially in Michigan where winter seems to last from October through April.

As you can see on the current pair of socks, I got a little carried away with the pattern and should have started the heel about an inch ago... rrrrriiipppppittttt

I had a wonderful weekend at Leah's house. We knit and shopped and watched RENT and we listened to our tapes of the Psychic we both went to, her two weeks ago and me on Saturday. We made gluten-free lasagna per Leah's dietary restrictions and a yummy salad and we made gluten-free brownies which were surprisingly wonderful. We also found a very good but very expensive chinese buffet for lunch on Sunday. mmm... crab cheese. too bad we didn't know we were going to end up there, or we would have brought zip-loc baggies... pretend I didn't say that out loud... we would NEVER do that!

So here we are,
Leah, learning to knit in the round... this picture is posed, she really is having fun learning to knit with 4 needles.

And here I am working on the modular scarf Leah taught me to make!



No pictures of us together though, the dogs couldn't get the zoom or the lighting right to take one of us... they were having a little trouble holding the camera; no thumbs, ya know.