Knitting, Randonymity, Those Cats

Random rainbows

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I’m enjoying the playlists y’all are sending in for the Chaotic Playlist Contest! You still have plenty of time to email your playlist to the contest line – remember that all playlists received by 6 pm Central Daylight Savings Time on Monday, April 10, will be included in the random drawing.

Let us all pause a moment to curse Daylight Savings Time. I’m still not back on track after springing ahead last weekend. Yeah, yeah, that extra hour of light is nice – but maybe we could just stay on DST all year instead of switching back and forth? Just sayin’.

There’s still time to buy tickets for the Geek Prom… No, I’m not going – why ruin my perfect prom non-attendance now? (Besides, skipping the cow eye dissection sounds like a wise move.)

Brace yourselves – is this not the cutest chocolate bunny you’ve ever seen?! Thanks, Mrs Pao!! But here’s the problem – I’m not sure I’ll be able to actually eat this twee little bunny. I want him to come home and live with me always!

*sniff*

Right now, the poor little bunny is hidden in my desk, away from my evil and menacing coworkers who have threatened his continued existence. Hmph.

Yesterday Danielle wondered if I’d been doing any knitting or if I was just hanging around admiring my cabinets. So last night I mostly finished my pair of Ranbow Jays – I have about 1/2 inch of ribbing left to do on one, plus weaving in the ends. (Thanks to Sandra, who inspired me to use my “Fun Nation” yarn for Jaywalkers!) And no, the heels aren’t uneven, altho it sure looks like it in this picture:


Yup, this was definitely my April Project Spectrum knitting project.

“Doody doody doody do… Whoa. What the heck is going on here?”

“So… bright… must not look directly at the socks…”

Randonymity

The cupboard over the fridge

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Kate is having a very interesting contest – show her the contents of the cupboard over your fridge. Now, at first I thought this wouldn’t be worthwhile, since I use that cupboard (heaven help you if you’re less than 5’9″ and need a paper towel in my kitchen, is all I’m saying). But when I actually took a look at it…

I obviously use it less than I thought. From the left, some boxes of Nut Thins, the aforementioned paper towels, a mongo jug of salsa (*mental note to cross salsa off grocery list*), the smoothie attachment for my blender (the blender attachment was my wakeup call), more paper towels, and party type paper plates, cups, and cutlery. You can’t really see my collection of Chipotle napkins behind the center bar, alas.

Within moments of opening the cupboard…

“Oh, what’s in here? Tuna? No… paper towels! Mom, you know I love to shred paper towels! Why are you hiding them in here?”
“Hmph. I will sit on top of this cabinet and meditate imperiously upon this injustice.”
Contests

Contest!

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Chaos, pink was last month! No need to stick out your tongue now. Or are you going to taste test the yarn?

“Hmm, is that a hint of melon I detect?”

Interested in winning that lovely skein of Project Spectrum April-appropriate sock yarn you see pictured above by Chaos’ paw? It’s a skein of superwash sock yarn from ebay seller lotusblossom in color Sunburst. (No, Scout, the skein of Burples next to it is not the prize.)

If so, send an email to the contest line. In your email, list five songs (artist and title) that you would include in a playlist inspired by the Cat Chaotic, along with a few sentences about why you picked those songs. The winning entry will be chosen by random number from all entries received. Emails must be received by 6 pm Central Daylight Time on Monday, April 10 so the yarn can go out in the mail on Tuesday and you can get knitting! If the winning entry belongs to someone who isn’t a knitter, said person will receive a completely different prize and a second entry will be chosen by random number.

An operator is standing by… Um, Chaos? Hello???

“Leave me alone. I’m busy.”
Knitting, Project Spectrum, Those Cats

In which I actually knit something and also find some yellow and orange around the house

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Yes, the slightly misshapen object below is a “necklace” for my iPod shuffle, based on Kristi’s Nano Necklace. All the lumpy lopsidedness is my own doing – Kristi’s Nano Necklace is gorgeous! What I needed was something to hold my shuffle while I walk around the Lakes this spring and what I got is very functional for that purpose. It was knit flat on an Addi Turbo 2mm for the body and Inox steel 1.75mm for the i-cord. The yarn is Regia Cotton Jacquard leftover from the first pair of fingering weight socks I ever knit (awwwww…..).

Please excuse the lighting – it was a bit dark outside when I finished…

Moving right along to Project Spectrum’s April colors of yellow and orange, Peeve started things out right by sending me this fabulous color appropriate card:

See Chaos there in the middle, begging? I think he’s flanked by Jeanne’s cats Bugsy and Pud. 🙂

I didn’t think I had much yellow and orange around and feared I would be reduced to taking pictures of the lemon dish soap and the Saran Wrap box. However, I did find a few things. Here’s a little cat sculpture that usually sits way up high, out of Chaos’ reach:

And here’s most of the yellow and orange media I found. Heck, there’s even some yellow in the upholstery on my futon couch that I hadn’t really noticed before:

“Whoa, what’s all this stuff on the coffee table?!”

“And the winner of the Chaos Booker Sniffer Prize is Children of God Go Bowling by Shannon Olson!”
Randonymity, Those Cats

Chaotic rambling, with Sundara

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The Monday after Daylight Savings Time starts (aka today) is always sort of brutal for me (and for plenty of others, I’m sure). So I’m a bit bleary and crabby this morning – bleary enough that I forgot to put chocolate in my desperately needed mocha. Blech. Don’t mind me.

What I didn’t expect from Saturday’s Stash Flash: that seeing my stash would make so many of you happy to discover that you didn’t have stashing issues in comparison. Hmph. However, I must now send you to see Dawn’s mind boggling stash, which cheered me up immensely. Here’s her office stash and her home stash (she has sofa and suitcase stashes!). I’ll wait. Back? See? I have a very reasonable stash. Moving right along…

For those wondering how one breaks a windshield while changing wiper blades: I had finally wrestled the old wiper blade off and the “naked” wiper arm slipped out of my hand and smacked into the base of the windshield. That’s it. Instant spiderweb.

A week or two ago, I added some of the lovely Sundara sock yarn to my stash. The color is Black Lagoon and the pictures below don’t really do it justice – the color depth and intensity are better than a lot of the Koigu I’ve seen recently!


“Why is this yarn in a bag, Mom? Don’t you trust me?”
Can you spot the cat in this picture?
Alongs, Those Cats

Flashin’ the stashin’

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This starts with five overview shots and then a few detail shots of some of my favorite things. For scale, I took the overview shots while standing on my coffee table. I don’t think Chaos is in any of these pictures (although he’ll make a guest appearance) because he was very busy in the closet that he’s never allowed into.

I have nine 66-quart Sterilite tubs, eight 33-quart Sterilite tubs, and all the “miscellaneous” in the first pictures. My conservative estimate is 1000 quarts of yarn… You can click on any of the pictures to make them larger.

Missing in action is another of those black crates, filled with bags of Cotton-Ease. I forgot that it was under the bed until just now…

I know storing yarn in plastic tubs isn’t supposed to be very good for it, since humidity can get trapped in the tubs. I solved that problem by sticking a refrigerator pack of baking soda into each tub.


“Mmmm… smells like salty yarn. Yum.”

A few detail shots… Here’s some of my Kureyon. There’s an Adrienne Vittadini kit (fuschia) that I won a few years ago on the right side of the bin. Some vintage Red Heart wool can be seen near the top of the photo. To the left of the bin are two skeins of Malabrigo.

A 33-quart bin of assorted Noro (mostly Kureyon):

A 66-quart bin of sock yarn, jammed very full:

A modestly sized basket with more sock yarn – Bearfoot, Fleece Artist, and Trekking:

Now I hope you’ll excuse me while I go squirrel away my yarn again… Oh yeah, all this yarny excess is stuffed into a 637-square foot condo. I haven’t resorted stuffing yarn into the furniture… yet.
Randonymity, Those Cats

Catnip mouse details and other bits and bobs

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The lovely Elizagrrl shared the details of the much beloved Red Catnip Mouse:

The mouse is from the Cat Warming Set in Stitch ‘n Bitch Nation. I used Lamb’s Pride Worsted, size five needles, and a combination of M1L, M1R, SSK and K2TOG for symmetrical shaping. For the insides, I made a little rectangular pouch for the catnip (a 3×3 piece of cotton folded in half and stuffed full of catnip), and wrapped it in a rectangle of quilt batting for loft…. Per my vet’s recommendation, I buy catnip in the bulk section at Wild Oats and Kally seems to prefer the toys made with it. Hopefully it doesn’t make Chaos too crazy! Kally was so mad that I didn’t give her that toy; I eventually caved into her whining and made one just like it for her. How she has me trained!

You must go see the picture’s of Eliza’s kitty Kally playing with Doppelganger Red Catnip Mouse! Too cute. Kudos to Knotty Mouse for correctly identifying the source of the mouse pattern yesterday – go check out Mouse’s very fun Maryland S&W buttons. This is my favorite so far (even though I’m not going):

Did you know that you can put a wicked crack in your windshield while changing your wiper blades? Or at least I can. And did. Curses. My inclination was to be lazy and have a shop replace them for me, but I decided I would be thrifty and change them myself. Heh. Let that be a lesson to all of you!

You may or may not remember that I won a contest over at Yarnivorous. The package from Lynne arrived at work yesterday. I had to take a picture of the wonderful Australian gluten-free goodies in my cube so that I could rip them open and chow down. I highly recommend the sticky fig and ginger cookies, er, “bikkies.” Yum. (My coworkers were a bit bemused by my picture taking. Best not to enlighten them.)

The package contained some gorgeous variegated blue sock yarn that Lynne dyed as well as some of her totally luscious handspun merino plied with purpley silk. (No, Jeanne, you cannot have my lovely blue Australian sock yarn…)

*sniff sniff* “Wow, this yarn smells so exotic!”
“Hey, I can knock things off the coffee table with my tail and make Mom scramble for them!”
“If I fit in here, do I get a return trip to Australia?”
Those Cats

Red, red mouse

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I’m having one of those sleepy, slightly brain dead days. Of course, I didn’t let that stop me from blogging, even though it probably should have. Heh. Lucky y’all… not! Anyway, I’ll apologize in advance to UB40 as I present a little song from Chaos, who’s as peppy as always.

Red, red mouse – you give me a whole heap of zing.
Whole heap of zing make me do me own thing!
Red, red mouse – you make me feel so boss.
I feel like a big black panther when you’re in me paws.


Give me little time, help me clear up me mind!
Give me little time, help me clear up me mind!

Randonymity, Those Cats

My thoughts not in a straight line travel

50 Comments

Hard to believe it’s Wednesday again, isn’t it? First, go wish Scout a happy birthday. I’ll wait…. You did? Good. Ok, now go do a happy house-getting and joyful Badger Bygone jig for Rabbitch. I’ll wait again… Finally, on to your regularly scheduled randomness.

Last weekend, I dragged out all my yarn bins to take pictures for Flash Your Stash this Saturday. Talk about an eye opener… After some calculations based on the number of Sterilite bins I have, I estimate I have about 1000 quarts (or 250 gallons) of yarn. About 100 quarts/25 gallons of that is sock yarn. When you consider that volume and then consider that my entire condo is only 637 square feet… What problem?!

Why don’t cats have any smell to them? Dogs do – a distinctly “doggy” scent. But not cats. Well, ok, maybe some cats have a smell. But Chaos doesn’t. I love his furry unscent.

How are they going to finish the Harry Potter movies with the actors they have?! Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) was born in 1989, so he’ll be what, 17 this year?? The fifth movie is slotted for 2007… You do the math. Won’t it look odd to have Harry, Ron, and Hermione be 25 or so when they get their O.W.Ls?!

I’ve turned the heel and started on the leg of my first Rainbow Jay sock. Last night I had a bad moment when I thought about how long the color repeats were and wondered where exactly my second skein started… So I started the second sock, with a wee bit of messing around and cutting so that the socks would match. All I can say is that I was very lucky to have started my first sock with the skein I did. If I’d started it with the second skein, I’d be cursing and stomping and rewinding and cutting right now. Whew!

My copy of Subversive Cross Stitch arrived last Friday, during a very rough day at work. The designs definitely brightened my day and had me giggling maniacally in my cube. Nope, I don’t cross stitch. But I do have one of the kits from the book and will definitely be making it at some point. (It’s this one, if you’re curious. Everyone at work knows things are really getting bad when I start dropping the F-bomb. Too bad I won’t be able to hang that in my cube…)

“What, Mom? You think it’s weird that I like to play in the laundry bag?”
“I bet your blog readers don’t think it’s weird. I bet they think it’s adorable. Am I right?”
Alongs, Those Cats

G is for…

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Grape ivy. With flamingo. Very dusty – it’s gotten a bit too large to drag into the shower, so at some point I’ll have to actually dust the darn thing (ack!). I’m in the picture, too, if your eyes are keen.

G is also for Goldfish. Yes, Chaos has a toy from Creative Kidstuff. How could I resist giving him a goldfish in a bowl, er, ball? The goldfish always stays upright as the ball spins, providing a great deal of feline fascination.

And finally, G is for El Gato! (Oh, come on, you would’ve been disappointed if I couldn’t work him in here somehow.)

“Of course, you already knew I sound just like my hombre, Puss-In-Boots from Shrek 2, right?”

Art journaling, reading, knitting, and cat parenting. It's a wild life.