Yay, Contest's Over!

First, I have a request - if my Sockapalooooza pal is reading this, could you leave an anonymous comment or somethin'? Hopefully I gave you enough info in my signup stuff that you don't actually NEED to contact me, but I'd just like to be sure I got matched up. (Not that I'm innocent over here - I finally left my own pal a comment just a couple of days ago. I could have asked her a whole bunch of questions, since she indicated only her shoe size and her preferences as "whatever", but hey, I'm taking that free reign. And I'm quietly grateful that I didn't get a pal who insists that she only wears pure silk lace-and-cable knee-highs. I'm sure it happens.)

Okay, the contest is not over in the sense that I'm finished - I'm just glad to finally have knitting to talk about. Although I think you'll see that really, there still wouldn't have been much to talk about.....but we'll get to that in a moment.

First up, a photo of my new shoes. Because I love them that much.

See?? I TOLD you they were fabulous. Maybe they pinch my toes just a little - but it's not important. Travis pinches my nerves sometimes, and I still love him.

Also, I have a tiny li'l ol' skein of handspun:


I did this just for fun - I have no idea, really, what the fiber was. It was a little bit of happy bonus in an order from Funky Carolina a few weeks ago, and I just wanted to see how much yarn I could get out of it. It's given me an idea to create a whole bunch of mini-skeins from each fiber I spin, just to use as decoration. (Yarn is decoration, right?)


It's also Project Spectrum-y. And I really like how it spun - I should contact her and find out what it was.....

Oh, hey, did I tell you that the stockings are kinda big? And that my dress is kinda small? So now that I'm losing weight, do you think I'm losing it in my midsection but keeping it in my legs so that both the dress and the stockings will fit? Oh hell no, that would be too ideal. No, I'm losing all the weight in my legs and arms. And while I'm happy to lose weight wherever I can, I really need my knee fat to help hold up the stockings! Don't go, knee fat! Stay with me! (For another three and a half weeks - then get the hell out of here.)

We had a good mail day, too. Everyone should have their Loopy Club shipments by now, but if you don't, LOOK AWAY!!!


I refused to look at the yarn for the longest time - I really wanted it to be a surprise and kinda hated to ruin it - I did close my eyes and show it to Travis and ask him if I'd like it, and he said I definitely would...but I still wanted to cling to the surprise!

There's some non-Loopy stuff here, too: to the left is my Interweave, with two sweaters and a pair of socks and a scarf and, oddly enough, a skirt that I really want to knit. I'm often lucky if there's one thing in IK that I'm really passionate about, so to have FIVE in this one is exciting (and overwhelming). To the right is a skein of Cabin Cove sock yarn and the little lavender sachet he packed with it to make sure it arrived in style and smelling so fresh and so clean (clean) - this is my first Cabin Cove, actually, and it is so heavenly soft I hate what I have to do with it (knit something for someone else and give it to them).

The whole rest of it - the little lamb shaped soap, the lemonade dye Kool-Aid, the chocolate, the pattern, the bag, AND the faboo vibrant yarn? ALL for the Loopy Club. I definitely made the right call in begging and sobbing my way into the club getting on the waiting list! All Things Heather is one of my top three mostest favoritest sock yarns, so I am beyond thrilled that she's the dyer for this installment, and Travis was right, I definitely liked it! And all that STUFF!!! Awesome.

Okay, okay, now the stocking progress reveal. Let me go ahead and say right now that if you put in a guess that I would be finished this weekend, you might want to look away.


Yep. *sniff* So, uh, that's where that is. *shifty eyes* I haven't started anything else, I just, you know.... *trails off, rocks side to side uncomfortably* Well, you know, I've been doing a bit of spinning. Soooooo.... *trails off again*


I mean, it could be worse! I'm into the calf shaping already, and it seems to be going pretty quickly. And I DO have three and a half weeks left. And....yeah. *blink* *blink*

Alright, I gotta go quit my job so I can get this done, along with the groom's second sock (two and a half inches of the cuff done! woo...hoo?)

Something Has To Take The Place Of All The Food I Can't Eat...

(Pssst: See anything you like?)

I can't have all the things that I want to shove in my mouth - so I have taken to, proverbially, shoving things in my pockets.

I have gone into a mode that can only be described as "apeshit" when it comes to spending money. Okay, so fortunately for me, I've been able to destash quite a lot of back-burner yarn to cover the yarn and Etsy splurging. (Note to self: Stop it!!) And some of the spending has been absolutely necessary wedding-related stuff. I haven't spent a fortune, I've just been doing little nickle-and-dime things that are completely manageable. But then.

Then.

I mentioned that over the weekend, I might have purchased some cute shoes. They were actually on pre-sale, so I couldn't have them right that minute. (Do I fully comprehend that process? No. But I really wanted those shoes.) So last night, I went to Spiffy Department Store to pick up my shoes. And there was a one-night-only sale.

Only one night, people! And deep down - way, way, way deep down and frequently forgotten and neglected - there is a girl. And that girl is an aspiring fashionista who really wants to wear Marc Jacobs dresses and Louboutin pumps but can't seem to find them for free. (As my mother always says to me, "Well, honey, if only you were born rich instead of beautiful." Well why in hell couldn't I have both??) Free is still not an option, but 40% off was - and though I still couldn't afford the Marc Jacobs and Louboutin (I'm not completely unreasonable), there was other stuff...what was I supposed to do??

Apparently I was supposed to use "40 percent off" to justify a few key purchases - but I did hold back and not go completely crazy. (A cute dress and cute sweatsuit thing for the honeymoon, and the "sweatsuit" is one of those ones that's kinda okay to wear in public - although I still get a little uncomfortable with the idea that sweatsuits, however adorable, are now okay to wear in public - and a pair of new jeans that were desperately neccessary, as I was starting to have to watch what I wore and how I sat with the two pair I have in order to to ensure that all the holes weren't visible - and these new ones make my butt look cute okay, tolerable. Also, I badly needed new black shoes for work.)

I could have bought new black shoes for work just about anywhere, true. But I bought my wedding dress from a shop's sample sale on eBay for one-fifteenth of what it costs retail. So it all balances out...I hope.

I did immediately come home and tear the stash apart to destash as much as I could to cover myself. Whatever, I wouldn't call that guilt. ;-P

But!! I am not going to the LYS sale on Saturday. There is nothing there that I absolutely need. I am staying away. I am knitting stockings. I am saving money. I have fabulous peep-toe pumps. *gazes at feet*

Last day for the contest! Travis made a point the other night that I wanted to bring up here, in case anyone else has thought of it. "Can't you just pick someone you really like and make sure you finish at the time they guessed?" Well, I suppose I could, but the thing is - I really like everyone. And that would create a tremendous amount of work for me, really, and let's not forget that above all, I am lazy. (And, in a recent development, kinda dirt poor. But that's beside the point.) So no worries about cheating - besides, while I've enjoyed reading the guesses, I haven't committed anything to memory and they're all muddled up in a big pile of numbers in my head.

Tomorrow - Bellocq progress photos!! Yay!!

Contest Reminder!

Remember, you only have until the end of the tomorrow to submit your guesses for the contest!! Win Socks that Rock sock yarn! And a pattern! Cheer me on! Lots of positive results all around! See the details on the contest here, and send the email here.

I can't wait to start talking about Bellocq again! Are you going to be surprised by my progress? Possibly....depends on your expectations. (That's not really a hint....could go either way, ya know?)

Now, because I have little else to discuss, here's another shot from the Photos Mom Sent Me installation currently running at the Museum of Goofy and/or Good-Looking Family Members. Yesterday, you got good-looking. So that would make today:

Goofy!!!! (That's my mom and dad. And that little tomboy thing in the middle? Yeah, that's me.)

Can I Just Say....

I have such a hot mom!

She just sent me a series of photos for me to go through (I need them for the wedding) and this was always one of my favorites of her. She's beautiful still - but I haven't seen this photo in a long time and I'm stunned by what a total betty she is!! The boys in my elementary school class always wanted to know whether my mom would be chaperoning our field trips. Now I get it.

Snap.

Oh, ye productive weekend, how I love thee! We got so much done! Programs are printed, gifts are purchased, most of the spending is over with and we managed to keep it mostly confined to wedding spending - though there may have been a little stumble at Neiman's where I may have found a super-cute pair of Kate Spade strappy heeled sandals on sale and Travis may have made such a big deal about how great they looked and how insanely long they made my legs look that I may have been forced to purchase them. And we might have been so exhausted that we felt we deserved a nice trip to the salon for a manicure/pedicure. (Yes, "we". He's very 21st century, that man of mine, and I'm grateful for it. However, he was one of four - FOUR! - men in the pedicure chairs. Apparently grooming is the new not-grooming. Hurray for that!)

We also picked out a reading for the ceremony. It's a poem entitled "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love". It was not lost on Travis for a moment that I managed to track down a poem that was romantic, appropriate, AND contained a reference to both lambs and wool. (What can I say - I'm an evil genius.)

This morning it was back to reality. I very nearly got into a fist fight with the bus driver at the Park & Ride lot - he slammed the doors shut and jammed his foot on the gas when I was literally five feet away from the bus. I lurched forward and pounded on the door - he claimed to have not seen me. Horse doo-doo! I had to struggle to maintain composure, but I managed to just deposit my bus fare, glaring at him the entire time, and quietly retreat to the back to take my seat and mutter angry words under my breath for a moment until I decided to just be grateful to have caught the bus at all. Sixty miles round trip at three dollars a gallon, I HAVE to be catching that bus! (That's also precious stocking-knitting time that I can't afford to give up.)

Now that I have my spinning mojo back, my spinning spending mojo is back too...I ordered some yummy batts from Loop (her colors! her fibers!) and another braid of nummy roving from Funky Carolina, which I have earmarked to spin up for a pal in order to make up for my selfish decision to keep that gorgeous platinum yarn I spun last week. Speaking of last week's spinning...

A fun little skein I named "Horsehare", due to the fact that some of the fiber resembles the coloring of a bay quarterhorse my father used to have, and it has a bit of angora content. I got two batts of fiber from the Lime n Violet shop, and they coordinated so well that I smooshed them together and spun them as a single. (Kinda wish I had a drum carder sometimes...)


When I'd started it, I figured I'd ply it, but then as I continued spinning, I realized this stuff wouldn't want to be plied. It's very Noro-esque in its nature, and I like it this way. I forget what all fibers are involved, but I know there's wool, angora, and alpaca. I'm pretty sure there's some mohair slapped in there too.


I tried to separate the roving into color sections - I didn't want it to spin in big solid chunks, but I did want a bit of a distinction - I think with the two rovings together, spinning it together without separating one of the rovings into segments would have created a pretty muddy yarn. I really love that neopolitan barberpoled bit there on the right. I've used about half of the roving, and I have 135 yards here, so I should end up with my standard mid-200 yards range. (I somehow always end up with 200-something yards. I wonder if I'll ever spin up some of the fibers where I have a pound or more and end up with productive yardage. I'm sure I will - but I'll probably do so over time, in 200-something yard increments.)

Happy Monday! Eeeghhhh....