Belated weekend posting aka blogger droid ate my post

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So, I spent 30min or so this morning writing up a post to make up for missing this weekend. It was lovely, and then my blogger droid ap ate it. So, I wil attempt to re-write it and give blogger droid a second chance. I wanted to test out this ap as I am hoping to use it at SDCC and Sock Summit to do travel blogging. Since the droid X didn't have spell check, and I use swype in my phone, please forgive any mis-spellings and/or typos. 

The steampunk costume is progressing nicely. Alyx pieced together the muslin test and after some initial confusion (the 2 center back pieces hid on us and didn't originally get seamed in) it fit great! The fabric swatches for the skirt arrived, so I am trying to pick a color. Once I do, I can order the fabric. Alyx, bless her, is in the process of re-sizing the shiry pattern. Her bf has also kindly agreed to help me make a belt to go with it all. I also have some great ideas for accessories.

 I cast on Marnie MacLean's executive funk on Sunday. I am already halfway through the lace pattern chart. I am making it with Knit Pick's comfy sport in ivory. The pattern actually calls for a fingering weight yarn, but they were out in my color choice. So, I cast on the number of stitches for the smaller size on 40in size 2's and then switched to 3's for the ribbing. I used size 6's instead of 5's fire the larger size. Initially I used a 36in cable, but I had to switch to a 47in and I might switch to 60in now. The grow a lot as you knit them. They are firing my 7.25in wrist perfectly at least! You can check out my ivory wristlets on Ravelry.

 So, my yarn choice was based on ether fact that I am knitting 4 accessories for my costume, 3 of which I want to kindof match. Knit Picks has several yarn lines that have a variety of rights with the same colors. Cindy was the only one with an off white in the neighborhood of the rights I needed. The cuffs called for a fingering, the collar for a dk and the spats for a worsted. So for the cuffs and collar I am using the sport. The spats will be done in current and trimmed in the ivory. I just have to knit like the wind. So, the whisker cardi is on pause for now. I will try and post pics as things progress.

Post-Con

(yes, she is sleeping like that)

So, my state of being since con ended was summed up by my dog on the way home. It was a whirlwind adventure in managing chaos as per normal. I did have some fun though. I got to take one of the guests (who is a knitter) to Churchmouse Yarns and Tea on Bainbridge. It was the perfect little trip as she got to experience riding a ferry, eat at a Seattle area diner and indulge in much yarny goodness.

I also finally got to see Alex aka DJ Origami's set from start to finish this year! It was awesome as he was mixing his own video and audio at the same time.

Returning to the real world as usual feels weird. I went to work on Thursday and Friday this week and it took some re-orientation. I've been really tired, but it might have to do with the fact that I am still sick. I keep thinking I have this thing beat and it keep creeping back up. It's down to mostly this really awful cough though.

On the bright side, I have resumed knitting! I got a few rows of my fleurette cardigan done at work and while watching Glee. Oh... yeah... I forgot to mention, Joe and I have given into the darkside. Yep, we started watching Glee. So far, it's ok. It's not my new favorite or anything. I think we are just addicted to watching TV series. As things go Glee is really pretty slow, it moves in Dragon Ball time. We are about halfway through Season 1 on Netflix.

Spring Cleaning

I have been using my days off lately to mostly do work for The Convention. However, when I am not a slave to my computer or taking phone calls, I have been trying to de-clutter the house. When we lived in VA we had a 2200 square foot house that we rented. While we shared this space with roomates, almost all the furniture in it was ours and the boys let me sprawl as much as I liked. As was, there was never anything in the dining room in the 2 years I lived there. So when Joe and I moved to WA, we paired down a lot of stuff for the move, but we still had a ton of stuff. 1 apartment and now an 1100 sqaure foot condo later and we still have all these boxes that haven't been opened since forever.

I started going through and opening some of these boxes to see what was even in them. I knew some of them had my pretties (music boxes, glass trinkets and such) for which I have been waiting on appropriate shelving to display them on. However, I found all kinds of stuff that I just had to let go. I had role playing character sheets from high school, through college and beyond. I had collected them because each one had a story to me. Not only the character's story (which I was always thorough in developing), but what was going on in my life at the time that I made that character. My friends, my ex-boyfriend, where I lived, what my hobbies were and such. It was kindof a bizarre look into my past and it was really hard to get rid of them. I had to remind myself that this is how hoarding starts, it's just paper Sabrina, let it go! I also found the ubiquitous prom photos and other assortments of crap.

My goal this spring is to know what is in every box and why I am saving it. If I don't ever intend to do anything with it, it needs to find a new home. I am allowing myself some small boxes of memories, like my baby books and such, but nothing extreme. Now, before you get the wrong idea, my house is not covered in boxes and I am really no where near being a hoarder (lets not talk about the yarn ok?). All of the stuff in question fits in a funny closet under the stairs. There are just other things around the house I could put in that closet and since I haven't looked at some of this stuff in 5 years, it needs to go. Simplify and de-clutter. I think it will be better in the long run, besides it will make the summer painting and re-modeling easier.

Test Knitting part 1

So, I recently agreed to test knit a pattern for hoodie  as it goes to quite large sizes and I am a plus sized knitter. The designed was king enough to let me give is a try even though I haven't knit a full sized garment before and I am perhaps not the fastest knitter in the world. I have decided to dedicate most of my weekend to working on this though. I decided to make this with a relatively cheap yarn as I didn't want to choose a really expensive yarn and ruin it. Also, since I need 3000 yards of yarn to make this in my size, I can only afford so much. I went with knit picks telemark in royal heather. The color is really lovely and I think it'll soften up nicely once I wash it. I'll try and post pictures as I go along with this. I am currently almost done with the bottom ribbing. I would probably have finished it by now, but I found a an issue where it looked like I sat down my knitting and dropped a stitch while I was gone, so when I came back I started knitting in the wrong direction. So half of the project was on row 5 and the other was on row 3. Yeah... so I just frogged it and started over.

The good news is now that I am wearing night braces for my carpal tunnel my wrist isn't getting all sore and numb from marathon knitting. So, I can knit a lot longer now. Though I think my doctor might not be so happy with that statement. Ah well.