Nom! Nom! Nom!

As I was sitting at my makeshift felting table yesterday afternoon, I heard a most peculiar sound coming from behind me....It was an odd sound.a chewing sound...a chewing on wood sound...strange.

It took me a second to realize the only wood around just happened to be my spinning wheel. Gasp! Horror! Sheer panic! I turned around and saw Merlin chomping down on the footman.

In an act of near superhero speed I had that fuzzy little demon off the end of that thing and  swiftly relocated before he could take another bite- me screeching all the while.

Scared the bejesus out of Boygenius. Merlin just thought it was funny(The kid ain't right.)

After inspecting the footman, I realized there wasn't much damage to report-just a few tooth holes, but no splintered wood. What kind of cat chews on a footman?  Really. The kid ain't right.

Year in a Nutshell...

In order to bring y'all up to speed, I thought I would give you the readers digest version of the last year. Here goes:

1.We added to our little family in the  fuzzy little form of a second Siamese cat to keep ole furgenius company.  He was a rescue kitten, swooped up and saved at a kill shelter by a Labrador retriever rescue, and located by us via Petfinder.  He was named Merlin when we got him, and it fit so we kept it...but like ole furgenius, there have been many rounds of nicknaming that followed (because calling a cat "monkeyface" makes  perfect sense). He has giant feet, and he is a terrible kleptomaniac. Lately, his favorites include whatever he can pull out of my purse, Boygenius' keys (which he hides under the bed), and books out of the bookshelves (which he pulls under the couch). I think he's trying to work his way though the whole set of penguin classics.

2. After many, many, months (like 15 months here people!) of being car-less, I am now happily back behind the wheel. This was due to a national auto repair chain (who shall remain nameless, lest the mere mention of the name send me into a apoplectic fit) ruining my car's engine  while replacing a belt, breaking off a bolt, breaking a drill bit off trying to remove the bolt, and then refusing to repair the damage until made to by  binding BBB arbitration. So yay! But I do have to admit that I miss busknitting.

3. I took another fine trip out of the country with my sister. This time it for 10 days to the sunny country of  Costa Rica, and I didn't pick up my needles once during the 1000+ miles  we rode on a bus.

4. I started wet-felting in earnest.

5. Wet-felting allowed me to make a scarf that looks like a giant strip of bacon. I still can't make up my mind is this is a good or a bad thing. I mean, who really needs a scarf that looks like a strip of bacon? Expect a tutorial in the semi-near future, so I'm saving the pics :)

6. I've had tendinitis in my elbow which has caused me to significantly slow up on my knitting since June. I did a little research online and I got this theraband flexbar to strengthen some muscles and take some pressure off the tendons. It seems to be doing good things for me, so you might want to give it a gander if you have similar issues. (*I'm just a happy customer, no ties to the company or anything & I'm certainly not a doctor so proceed at your own risk.*)

7. I am in the midst of planning the humdinger of all baby showers for my best friend (more details & eventual pics to follow). It's been loads of fun, and I can't wait to meet this little one!

I'm looking forward to showing you guys some of the things I've been working on. Good things are coming folks!

ZZZZZZZZZ.......

 Sorry y'all. Must have fallen asleep. I was out a lot longer than I meant to be..

Yep, its me. Back from the ether with a new resolve. I've got this spanky new background and a new resolve to get cranking on this here blog in a major way. I can''t say that the look is final yet-I could change my mind on it a half dozen times before we are through-but it certainly looks a lot better than the sorry one that occupied this space a while back.

For the benefit of the both the blog I have instituted a solid NO CHRISTMAS KNITTING policy for the year. Yessir. Not a single stitch will pass  from my needles and into the hands of a friend or relative this year. It's going to be the ultimate experiment for me to see that  I don't crack and try to slide some mittens in under the radar, and possibly a grand relief for relatives who were straining under the weight of the wool of years past. Should be interesting. Hope you stay tuned.

I'll be back on Wednesday with a "year in a nutshell" post that will bring you up to speed on just what has been keeping me hopping for the past year, as well as a few of the small pearls of wisdom I have gathered during that time. In the meantime, if anyone can tell me what the heck this is you will be my hero:

  Love always,

Skeingenius

Explainations, Excuses, and General Information.

Ah yes. In answer to Karen's question, the toilet-riding clowniness came from a carnival themed tailgate party at work. You can say that I took it a little bit too far, but I think it was just far enough....it brings a whole new meaning to casual Friday when you are making balloon animals and riding a toilet. Any excuse I can get to make a raging fool of myself in public, and I am totally there. It's a tragic flaw in my character, really. It comes from the long buried high school drama geek in me. I was the best drunken villager that I could be in Brigadoon, not a single line, but lots of enthusiastic dancing and faux drunken stumbling...but I digress.

So, whats shaking? The Christmas knitting is in full swing around these parts. I'm kind of at a loss though, because some of the members of my family sneak in here to keep tabs on me, and I'm hesitant to spoil any Christmas surprises by putting up pictures. How do ya'll handle this one? Whats a knit blogger to do between November and the new year when the fingers are flying and things need to stay secret? I'm still trying to figure that out. All I can say is that I started and finished 2 projects for assorted family members over the weekend, and now my hands are mush. I'm going to need to take a day to let em rest up for the next woolly battle.

Happy Monday!

And Now for Something Completely Random...

In the million and fifty years since I last posted anything, the following things have occurred:

1. I have finished the hemlock ring, and cursed extensively as my blocking boards were not big enough to properly block it as tightly as I would like. But the blanket is beautiful and a crazy fast knit.

2. I have finished 2 pairs of Bella's Mittens-(one for me and one for boygenius who saw them and fell in love with big cabled mittens that vaguely resemble the coolest oven mitts ever).

3. I have lost my cell phone in a rain storm. Its lifeless carcass was found by a neighbor who decided it would be a smashing idea to sit it out on the front stoop of our apartment building so it could then be stolen by a random passerby. Note to phone thief: I shake my fist at you, random phone stealing stranger. You are made of suck.

4. Boygenius and I bought a new mattress and now for the first time in 7 years, I can sleep without feeling like random body parts were going to fall off in the morning. Yay for big people beds that my feet don't hang off of and yay for high thread count sheets! Yay for curling up in said bed and knitting my freaking brains out!

5. Boygenius and I have celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary, and the 5th birthday of the diabolical Furgenius.

6. Oh yeah, and this happened:

Yes, thats me dressed up as a clown. And yes, I am riding a motorized toilet.

Don't ask.

Wowza for Weekends!

Whats this? A actual photograph of knitting? I know, its shocking. The last thing you expect to find here on Skeingenius. Sometimes I have to throw in a wild card to keep you on your toes :)

Whats shakin' on this fine Sunday afternoon? I have to say that I've been a bit lazy today so far, a perfect end to an altogether fantastic weekend. Friday night was a night spent knitting with Furgenius plopped firmly in the lap, disk 3 of True Blood on DVD, and Boygenius off shooting xbox zombies at a friend's house. A great way to unwind from the stresses of the week for both of us in our own way.

Saturday morning I met my mother in law and sister in law for some fine morning coffee and some "farmers marketing". I love those ladies and talking and spending time with them is a great treat. My mother in law is an amazing knitter, and we have a great time "talking shop".

On my way home I got a wonderful surprise. My best friend, who lives an hour and a half away, called and said "whatcha doing? I wanna come down to see ya!" so I squealed with unrestrained joy, skipped the rest of the way home, and then proceeded to speed clean my sad and sorry apartment so it would be fit for company. Then I sat down with my knitting yet again, waiting for my girl to arrive. By that point the Hemlock Ring had grown to look like this:This blanket is growing pretty quickly, and I think I'm going to love the heck out of the finished object. Furgenius already loves it, most of the time if I set it down for more than a minute she climbs on top of it and makes herself at home.

Once Jaq arrived, we ran amok, went to bookstores, ate Indian food, and generally had a great time. Once we made it back to the apartment, a neighbor knocked on the door to ask for help since another neighbor's indoor cat had jumped out of a screen less 1st floor window. He was running loose and scared outside and generally wigging out. Boygenius and I had cat-sat for him in the past, so he knew us, and I grabbed him up and we got him back inside, but not without a little bloodshed.As you can see, he took a few little pieces out of the inside of my forearm (the weird shinyness is from the liquid bandage stuff that I used tospackle myself back together). Can't say I blame the kid for scratching me up, he was pretty frightened by the whole thing and all he wanted was to get back home. He's a good ole boy.

So here it is, Sunday afternoon. All I have left to accomplish is to figure out whats for dinner and to knit until my hands fall off. Possibly change out of my pajamas for a while before changing back into them. Perfection.

Granny Clampett and the disappearing dpns.

Why is it that double pointed needles, especially ones larger than sock knitting diameters, have gotten so doggone difficult to find in most stores lately? Maybe this is not the case in actual local yarn stores, but in the general crafting variety that are all I can access by public transport at the moment all I seem to find are blank holes where needles used to be.

I must have bought the yarn to start Boygenius's gifty Hemlock Ring throw like 15 years ago last Tuesday, thinking that I would at some point wander across something pointy and possibly enough like a 10.5 DPN that I would eventually be able to start knitting. After maybe 3 months time I was still needleless. And for future reference, sharpening pencils on both ends only leads to frustration and graphite smudges on your yarn.

Eventually I gave up the good fight, realized the mission would likely continue on in an unsuccessful manner, so I did what any self respecting knitter who spends most of their workday at an internet connected computer would do: I ebayed the crap out of those needles. They showed up in the mail yesterday, much more quickly than I expected, which was so exciting that I didn't even turn fully evil when I realized that they had arrived a few hours before I knew it and Boygenius had accidentally buried them under a stack of junk mail without telling me I had a package.

When I finally found them, my fingers got immediately itchy for the knitting.

So my evening went a little like this: playing, but not quite watching the Flight of the Conchords on DVD in the bedroom while doing battle with the Emily Ocker circular cast on, which I couldn't quite get the hang of since I was 75% migraine addled with no concentration, and occasionally excusing myself from the knitting to barf, which made me feel much better. But it felt good to be knitting.

After an embarrassingly extended amount of time I finally gave up on that cast on out of frustration, crocheted a ring and started knitting into it. Also at some point during the night's knitting and multiple trips to the bathroom I lost my eyeglasses. I still haven't been able to find them, which means I am currently rocking my spare pair, which make me look like a younger version of Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies. (Did I mention that my headaches often make me stupid and I lose things?...anyway. )

Yeah, its foxy. Here's hoping I find my glasses soon. If I don't, at least I know what I can be for Halloween :)