I Am A Witch and I'm Awesome

Sunday was a witching night. That's right -- I took my Slytherin self out on a witchy witchy evening and I went around being ambitious, sneaky, evil, and awesome. I'm not saying I communed with He Who Must Not Be Named or anything, but when you're in the Slytherin house, you can be just a little evil, you know!

I might have insulted a few muggles and some Hufflepuffs (boring jerks). I might have cursed a few people. I might have eaten all the berries I could find without sharing them with my family. Oh, let's not pretend any more, my cohorts. The first thing I did when I went out was that I found some lousy do-gooder Gryffindor to fight. They're also so 'courageous' and 'honorable'. Well, check out this jerk trying to cast some spell on me when I wasn't looking.



I was checking to make sure innocent ducklings weren't going to be caught in the crossfire, and he straight out attacked. I know that it isn't usually in the Slytherin image to be protective of baby ducklings, but I hate people, not ducklings! And he took ruthless advantage of the fact.

I'm happy to report I won the fight and I celebrated most joyously by being super witchy.

WIP Wednesday #1

I'm introducing yet another new feature because they make my blogging life so much simpler. It's stolen, rather shamelessly, from Ms. Knitpicky, though I'm not going so far as to steal her rather awesome title for it (WIP it Wednesday).

I'm hoping that once a month, Helen will jump in here with her WIP, but some people are very busy nowadays planning and rushing around, so if she doesn't, I'll have to understand.



Remember that Slytherin Scarf I've been working on for over a year now? Yes, you do. How can you not? I always mention working on a row or two here or there. Well, I'm on section thirteen out of fifteen, so I'm finally closer to the end than the start. It looks decent, but it doesn't look as nice as Paul's yet. I stupidly picked an acrylic rather than wool yarn, so I'm thinking it'll never be as nice as Paul's scarf! When I'm done knitting this one, I have to get a photo of both of us wearing our scarves. If Paul has to broil in July for that picture, so be it.

The next two sections might go a little faster due to my superstitions. I always try to hurry along when the number thirteen is involved since I always fear it will bring bad luck on my house. Let's hope that I can wear this scarf this winter. The possibility is not nil!

I am a tiny bit afraid I'm going to run out of grey yarn before this whole scarf is done, so let's all keep hoping that if I do, I don't go crazy and try to knit the rest of the grey with scrap yarn from my yarn basket.



Lastly, folks -- you're all crazy hateful of hunger. More than one of you is on an every two or three hour food schedule, and all of you get angry! I really am the only person in the world who doesn't mind hunger. You should all join a club with Paul that meets regularly for food. He can tell you about the times he's basically disallowed me from chatting with him while we wait at restaurants to get seated because he's grumpy and starving. I will not be joining you all since if the food comes late, you might attack!

I Said Blogs Without Photos Suck

And yet... My blog is photo-less. Sure, it has a sexy new URL, but it takes more than URLs to run a blog. It takes photos, good writing, and a regular posting schedule. Since I'm never going to have a regular posting schedule and the chances of good writing drop, I need photos. (Please note, this is not a comment on Helen's writing. Her writing is good and gets posted at shops and linked to and adored.)

So, I thought I'd do an update on where my knitting projects are at. But with pictures! I'm still working on my Schaeffer Anne anklets, and I've decided against knitting Nathan a pair in this yarn.



The mohair pretty visibly stands out as you can see from a close up of the first sock.



I'm fairly sure you get put in the Time Out For Bad Mothers corner if you give your child a rash due to something you knit him, and with my luck, he'd be allergic to mohair.

Due to August's heat I stopped knitting on my Slytherin scarf for a while, but the weather is cool once again, and it's time to start knitting this sucker up. I've pretty much given up the dream of having this scarf done this winter, but we'll see. It is pretty long already.



Do I really need all the repeats? (Yes, I do. I ordered extra yarn because I ran short for Paul's Gryffindor scarf.)

Lastly, I bought a new tape measure for my sock knitting bag.



Coincidentally, my plain white tape measure, which I lost months ago, came out of hiding the day after I received my new tape measure. Maybe my new tape measure is the kitten, and my old tape measure the ninja.

So, did I bring the sexy back?

The Best Laid Schemes, Gang Aft A-Gley

Last week, I told you all my plans. Wow. I don't even know why I pretended to plan last week. Let us review...

Thursday: cross-stitch

I think we already know how this turned out. Now, I did cross-stitch a tiny bit that night, but ten or fifteen minutes of cross-stitch doesn't really count, does it?

By the way, thank you to everyone who so kindly complimented my socks. I'm a little defensive when people do so because I believe they look hideous in my mind, and I'm not taking the compliments. I'm sorry. They are very soft and very warm, and if I can find some colorways that I like, I will be buying more of the yarn.

I have talked of hating crazy varigations in the past, but I'm a hypocrite. While I'll always believe that a colorway like Space Dust will look like clown puke when knitted up, I'll happily buy Koi Koi or any other pinkish/bluish colorway. I believe it was Christy, my future sister-in-law, that said to me that I liked yarns that looked like unicorns had thrown up on them. Sigh.

Sunday: sewing, another cloth book

I didn't even craft on Sunday. On the weekend itself, I might have done another thread or two of cross-stitch, but nothing noticable.

Monday: knitting (scarf if it isn't too hot, socks if it is)

I knit about two rounds of my Slytherin scarf. Okay, lie, I finished one of the gray groups, and started on my green rounds. I'd be sad at the slow progress if it weren't for the fact that I haven't worked on it at all for months!

Tuesday: cross-stitch OR drawing

I might have spent a few minutes cross-stitching this night.

Wednesday: knitting (scarf if it isn't too hot, socks if it is)

I went to Helen's, ostensibly to knit. Then, her three foster kittens brought me low. It was horrible! I was knitting while watching The Tudors and then these three kittens sat on me and my knitting. I then proceeded to pet them because KITTENS.

So, I was going to let this whole entry going to go pictureless, but I think we all know what I think about blogs without photos. Here is a picture of The Rose of Sharon cross-stitch.



Hours and hours of work to show you that I added about two square inches of work from the last time I photographed it. Perhaps less. Next time, I'm just going to link to other people's WIPs and pretend that I did a lot more.

I also have an updated photo of the scarf!



In case you're curious as to why it is laying so oddly, I keep the actual yarn stuffed into the center of the scarf to prevent my kitties from taking it out and carrying it around my house. Since I spent part of the weekend simply rewinding my silver yarn again, I clearly needed to take action.

So, are you asking if I have plans for the upcoming week? Yes, I do. I'm not giving up on my plans. I think I have started alternating projects to good effect, but I do need to be a little less stringent about my planning.

My plans are thus: two days of sewing, two days of knitting, one day of cross-stitch, weekends are free as usual. Ideally, I'd also like to start Nathan's matching ugly socks. I'm still working on leaving my computer a bit earlier, though I've failed tonight!

I do still want to get my cloth book done for my cousin's baby, but I'm itching to start another garment with my sewing. I wasn't going to do the Flouncy Tank Top project from the book Sew Everything Workshop, but then I saw a gorgeous version that made me drool.

Mmm, I love when I find inspiring blogs or photos.

Lastly, thank you to the person who came to my blog and followed my links to Amazon and made purchases. It was nice of you and I made a whole dollar! I was stunned when Amazon told me it had happened, actually, and then I told myself that I'd buy a Simplicity pattern to make for my blog! I love the dollar pattern sales at Joann!