happy hallowe'en!

presenting: the empty child! he wore the gas mask most of the night, but then decided it would look better on a pumpkin.

wha happint?

i had a stay-at-home-mum day yesterday as h is sick (booooo) so i did my favourite stay-at-home-mum thing - baking cookies! thing is, they taste okay, but... well they're meant to be snickerdoodles, but they neither snicked nor doodled. instead of being crinkly cinnamon snaps, they are puffy cinnamon domes. which i shall certainly have no trouble polishing off quickly, but... i wanted snickerdoodles! i know i have read thoughts on "proper" snickerdoodles and how they must be made with [insert fat here] but i don't remember which was preferred - crisco? lard? i used butter and i am sad, and normally butter never makes me sad.

holy 1970s batman

board-game-closet obsession continues... experience the fun of learning to communicate more effectively! it's ungame, a very i'm-okay-you're-okay, me-generation type of endeavour. instructions include "if you felt lonely this week, take a vacation at cheerful chalet" on the "hang up" squares, or on a "tell it like it is" square you might draw a card that says "when was the last time you cried? why?" that's about as much fun as it gets!

sexy terrorist gear

there's a completely amazing scene in the 1982 thriller who dares wins that has to be seen to be appreciated. this early role for the always incomparable judy davis (after my brilliant career, but two years before a passage to india catapulted her to international acclaim) styles her as a glamourous-but-dangerous radical, an heiress who is not afraid to kill in the name of peace. when she isn't planning protests and hostage-takings with her underground liberation front "the people's lobby," she's performing a brilliant broadway-type anti-war musical number that brings to mind the 1979 kate bush bbc christmas special (another thing that must be seen to be believed).
anyway she and her undercover secret service lover are heading to the underground lair, where samizdats are churned out on mimeographs and peaceniks train at target shooting.
and glamourous, dangerous judy davis as frankie leith is wearing this:

yes, it appears to be a slouchy mohair handknit with a giant squirrel on the front.

stickin' it to the man! i think i need to chart that.

a couple of things on the go

am working slowly but surely on a few things for the wee one - hat and mitts are done (and much loved!) and i'm thinking of submitting the pattern (once i'm happy with it) to petite purls, and an asl "i love you" vest which i hope against hope will be ready for school photos on monday! if petite purls wants the hat, the asl love you vest may wind up being the first pattern i try selling. once i work out the kinks.

malabrigo giveaway!

yarn and kisses is giving away some lovely malabrigo today on salihan crafts - check it out and comment on her blog for a chance to win!

sock!

i'm making the thuja socks for tg, and it occurred to me - casting on 44 sts in worsted is perfect for a grown person, but if you cast on that many in fingering it would be right for a little guy! i cast on yesterday and just finished the first one!

excited!

a package has been shipped that i can't wait to open... but with so many
projects already on the go (and a left hand that does *not* like
knitting fingering weight) maybe i should just set it aside for my own
xmas stocking?

country living

am up visiting my mum in my old hometown today - tomorrow we will drive to the cottage and back for the traditional thanksgiving feast! mum has been baking up a storm. meanwhile, i have been knitting, numbness notwithstanding! young h lost a mitten within minutes of me digging them out for the cold weather (i never sould have let him near mittens without strings), so i decided to knit him a new pair, along wit a new puppy hat, since the puppy hat is his all time favourite! mittens are done (well, i still have to do te string beofre i hand them over) and i am about halfway done the hat. i've been taking manic notes (i think i have perfected the puppy nose this time) and i'm contemplating writing up the pattern and maybe selling it on etsy to raise funds for our parents' group. we'll see. i may need to recruit some test knitters first.

i must be losing it

ok it nearly killed me to do this... may still do a little more photoshop tweaking? in any case here it is, xmas card 2009 - mainly cozy but with a hint of the spooky, a la coraline (or anything by tim burton, really). i was entertaining the notion of doing a stop-motion short all in cookies, but now that i have slaved for about a billion hours for one photograph, i think that plan may be on hold.

happiness and cheer

ok my left arm is tired from the (small!) amount of knitting i did this weekend, but i decided to press on and finish a project i started last week: the xmas cards (i am the crazy person complaining that the bay didn't have their "christmas street" section up and running in september, whilst everyone else groans if they hear one measly carol before the end of november).
anyway.
i had a bit of heartache with this earlier in the week, when in my reduced-motor-control state i bumped something and broke it in two, and then my poor husband was subjected to a self-loathing rant. but i decided that if i didn't get it done today it just wouldn't happen, so here we are.
a few work-in-progress photos to tantalise you:




oh, and this one:

long time no post

wow, it's been a while since i posted, but i haven't been getting much done. i had some x-rays done last week, and they show degeneration of the cervical spine, and c-curve scoliosis further done. my left shoulder is 2" higher than my right shoulder now, and the end result is various aches and pains, muscle weakness, and numbness/tingling in my left hand. so, not much energy for crafting.
but i did finish this sock!