It's my duty to make that bootie

I'm in the middle of working on a cardigan for myself and it is taking a long, looooong time. This is because it's knit in a smaller gauge than I've ever knitted before - I'm using sock yarn which is very thin. Sock yarn is also known as fingering weight (gross) or 4 ply (sounds like toilet paper).

To keep myself from going crazy, I'm trying to start smaller projects that can be finished in a few hours just to remind myself that I actually am capable of finishing things. The smallest projects of all, of course, are things for babies. To clarify: these are items FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S BABIES thankyouverymuch.

I'm also trying to increase the skillz in my knitting repertoire, which is how I arrived at the great idea to make the Felted Baby Booties previously mentioned. Last night, I got home from a long day at work, brought up Easy A on Netflix on Demand (I give it an easy B in terms of entertainment value) and started the pattern. I was so pleased at how fast and easy it was to work on something for a tiny foot. It was looking like I was going to have a whole bootie done before heading to bed! But then...

Oh, what's that? I mis-read the pattern and didn't build the other half of the cuff? Greeeeat.

Reading is my strong suit, it's counting that does me in!

Aw, well. I've had to re-do many a project due to a careless errors like this. I'm even thinking about ripping back the sleeve on my cardigan that's taken me a week to build because I did some of the stitch decreases in the wrong order. But I'm going to table that and just start the booties over again. It will be faster this time now that I've done the pattern 90% properly, right?

Then the real fun begins - felting in my lil' washing machine! Hoooboy.

In conclusion - Booties: Can I Kick 'em?

The best... around!

I think we all need a little Karate Kid theme music to get us through this week. Seeing the sun this morning made me feel like spring will eventually come and I'll just need to do a couple of high kicks to sail on into the weekend.

In other news, I'm going a little over-board in the arts and farts and crafts department. I'm in the middle of the aforementioned cardigan project and it's taking freaking forever. Therefore, I'm picking out a few quick hits so I can actually finish something for once. What's the fastest thing over? Baby booties, of course. Tiny feet, little work. I can deal with that. The inspiration for the next project came from the site Ravelry.com, which is basically Facebook for knit and crocheters. SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE.

Mmmbut seriously, folks. Just look at these. Look at them:

Via a fellow Ravelry member's (northpoll) photo stream

Wooden apple button. I don't care who you are, that's fucking adorable. A. dorable. The fuzziness comes from a process called "felting" which will be a new skill for me if all goes well. If not, no harm done, for it will be a minimal loss of resources.

Recommended Viewing

Hello! I realize it's been eleventy billion years since I last updated, but things have been happening. In a nutshell - ill grandparents, dog with diarrhea, meetings in Normal, work, friends. Mainly, I blame Twitter.

I'm hoping to get back in the swing of things and thank the two of you for sticking with me! Last night, the next movie on our queue arrived, selected by Alex:

This was a fascinating film. Embarrassingly, I was aware of Kissinger, but not in anyway knowledgeable. To my mind, he fit that 'elder statesman' role in our national lexicon, but what he actually did as Secretary of State wasn't something I knew much about. Recognizing that this film has an agenda, it is an important view at this point in time being sixty-odd days out from the Bush Administration. The case against Kissinger is a major reason why America doesn't recognize international criminal court and is a huge indicator that members of the previous administration will not be brought to justice for sanctioning torture as proven by the Red Cross.

How the previous administration's "indiscretions" are handled is a huge problem for the Obama administration because if he does put together a Truth and Reconciliation commission, it won't be able to conclude anything other than prosicution. This is something that Obama seems to be aware of and he has eased off the idea recently. Seeing what was committed under Kissinger and how nothing (aside from a film and a book) has been done to even recognize the human rights violations does not bode well.

Be a MAN

I found the following video to be interesting and timely as I attended a Little Mermaid sing-along last week.


I do wonder if Disney is really at fault or if it's our cultural mythology in general. Most of the stories are part of our folklore or were fairytails in other countries adapted by Disney. Yes, they provide the imagery, but the basis for the story provided much of the masculine and feminine rolls.

... And yes, this time around, I did notice how mega-buff King Triton was and how impossibly tiny Ariel's waist was.

Why so serious?!

Dude. You guys....

The Dark Knight is effing AWESOME.

See it right now and prepared to have your sh*t rocked!!!!