A,

Why isn't accordion music more popular? Just look at what Yann Tiersen can do with it.

So this dog and rabbit thing has turned into something like his-and-her pets. Besides the fact that he has had projectile diarrhea on more than one occasion now (in the apartment), I haven't had much to complain about the dog. It looks like James will stop trying to rough-house with the rabbit now that he has a more receptive playmate. Maybe he'll stop putting her in the sink.


You know, it's interesting. Just about anything Hazel does tends to be indescribably adorable. Not so with the dog. Sleeping, eating, licking, hopping around. . . Climbing onto the highest point in the room. . .

No, this is not posed. She climbed on top of me all on her own. Doesn't she look like a giant in this picture?

Notice, no pictures of the dog yet. Despite his being amicable, he has yet to win me over.

Knitting news! I had a free evening!! It was incredible. First time in weeks--no obligations. James had to work on Friday, so I had the whole evening to myself and my yarn and my dying pots.



More fair isle yarn! Notice the blue yarn to the left. I finally found the time to fix up a batch of make-shift blue to match the color in my stalled glove project. They appear to match relatively well, but we'll see what it looks like when I start in on the fingers.

I am a huge fan of this kool-aid dying process. Yet I was perturbed by the lack of blue kool-aid options in the grocery store. Actually, there were no blue flavors to be found (and I went to several grocery stores). So I experimented a little. Blue food dye on its own does nothing, but when mixed with a base of, say, pink lemonade, you get the delicious blue that I used for my gloves. I wonder why this is. I wish I knew more about why this works. I've tried to do a quick search under the chemistry of kool-aid dying, but I mostly just came up with methods or techniques. Explanations were lacking. Well, I can live with that. As long as it works.

K

Vireo fibrosus

Dear K,

In between studying for immunology and neuroscience I happened to catch glimpse of a strange bird sitting at the bird bath.


I believe it's the Vireo fibrosus, a bird hardly seen in the wild, but extremely pleasant and a superb hoarder of yarn and fibers. In fact, what do we see coming out of his back?

V. fibrosus is rare find, but if tamed, will gladly hold any little trinkets like darning needles, thread, or stitch holders under his wings.


However, he is best known for storing yarn in his back. Extremely loyal, V. fibrosus will protect your yarn and hold the ball together as long as you desire. However, if you need to switch projects, he will gladly let you exchange balls with a snap!


I'm glad I found one of these and tamed him for my own. Any naming suggestions?


Always,
A

Gasp! What if they did this to yarn!

K

I've got to get back to studying, but I love this.



It's like me in the morning, minus the make over or photoshopping!

A

A,

This isn't a real post. I just wanted to say that I wish you still lived across the hall from me. I'd be coming over to say hi if you did.

K

Poor Hazel-rah

K,

I feel for your little bunny. Mickey, my cockatiel at my parent's house, would scathingly attack a 6'4" man (and he has) but panicked when we had ducks in the house once. Not that a dog wouldn't be scary to a bunny. Maybe there is a no-kill shelter near you? Though most shelters won't typically put a dog down, I don't think. I don't really know much. I would say if anything you're not allowed to have the dog at your apartment, and this isn't like the dorms where you could just get fined for it. You guys could be evicted for something like that! Maybe?! I'm making stuff up, but I know it's not a good idea to cross people when they're giving you shelter. (Which is why I contained my temper, barely, when I got in an argument with my landlord the other day.)

On the grandma front? Her sister died and she didn't tell us for days. Alzheimer's or stubbornness, who knows! She was executor of the will, but she couldn't go out to California, so guess who volunteered to go? My uncle! He's gone out to CA to fleece other members of our family as well. I'd call him a nasty name, but I sincerely can't think of a harsh enough name I feel comfortable writing and that describes him. [Insert harsh derogatory name here.]

You know about my uncle and his ways, and for anyone else reading, just know that he is not a good man. At church yesterday there was a pretty poor sermon about general Christian principles that ended up not much saying anything of value. One story spoke to me, however. Apparently when that man went into the Amish school a few years back and shot all those little girls, the Amish forgave him. They not only forgave him, they went to his funeral to morn his death and sent his family some of the money that was donated to them to help cover the hospital costs of the girls who lived. How horrific was that, and still there was such forgiveness. I think my uncle might be the only man I've come close to hating, if I haven't already done so. While he's done horrible horrible things, and continues to do so, he hasn't killed anyone.

I worry that I carry my feelings for him beyond what I should, not even as a Christian, but as a person who needs to let go of things they can't control. I can't control what he does, but I can control my feelings about him. Am I justified in how I feel? Is there any justification for hate? I don't know the answers to these questions.

...Let's take a break from these deep, dark thoughts. I really didn't know I was going there, my deepest apologies for such dark thoughts on a cold Monday. So I was on break this past week, and I've got a lot of catch-up to play! Let's start with current projects today, and I'll try and work throughout the next couple weeks to show everything I've actually been working on and finishing! Sound good? At least it sounds more positive than me griping about my damn uncle.

I did some dying over Christmas of some purple silk and wool yarn that I'd ripped from a lovely sweater.


My yarn is so awesome it has the power to defy gravity and dry side-ways. There was so much yarn that I couldn't dye it all in one go, and had to do separate batches for each skein. This caused a problem where they are slightly different shades.

That should be...fun. To try and fix. Somehow. I'll try knitting up a swatch with alternating strands from different skeins to see how well that works.

My mittens are looking delightful save the fact that they are a bit long...perhaps 1.5 inches longer than the tip of my middle finger.


So what do you think: change the pattern and shorten it, or live and let be? I need some opinions here.

The top down delight is a tad confusing. I'm trying to make it well-fitting with no ease. Not bigger than me and not smaller than me. I've finished one sleeve, and I love it, and I'm down to the point where everything is now in the round, with the added benefit of no rowing out, thank goodness. However, when I try it on, the side with the sleeve just slides off. Apparently the sleeve pulls it off. I'm worried that this is too big with too much of a wide-neck to work. In other words, that it's always going to keep sliding off my shoulders! That's not what I want at all.

I'm wondering if I add the other sleeve will that stabilize it? Will adding the collar around the V-neck stabilize it even further?


So I accidentally spilled some hot chocolate on the yarn I was knitting with, so I chopped it off, put it in a skein, and washed it. Which led to this:


Do you see that color change? I'm assuming that if I wash the entire sweater when it's done that I won't have this color problem, that all of the excess dye will wash out. It's an interesting preview.

Recognize this scarf? Anyone? 500 points if you can name the scarf.


This is a hint about a surprise I'm getting. Can you guess? It's not a dog. 1257 points if you guess this one. (Kris is excluded from guessing, since he already knows.)


I was walking around taking all these pictures the other day when my toes really started to feel like something was jabbing into them. Then it'd get better, then it was prickly again.


Pins in the slippers. This could be a sign that my crafts are really overtaking my life.

But you already knew that.

A

there's a dog in my house

A,
I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother. Winter's got to be a hard time--to take care of her, and for her to stay safe and well. Sometimes you want to be able to force people to do things. To do the right thing. It's so hard. Let me know if anything new develops.

I've been busy. Too busy to dye more yarn to fix my gloves, too busy to start any new projects, and I'm getting bored with what I'm working on now. That makes for less knitting because it's less interesting.

I thought I should let you know there's a dog in our apartment right now. I think I want it to leave. It feels like a stranger is in the room with me. Plus I'm afraid to take it outside to pee.

Let me explain. So this homeless (and previously abused) dog shows up earlier in the week, and James' colleague takes it home. Except since they already have three dogs and maybe seven cats, they don't want to keep it. Thus begins a week of pleading on James' part to convince me to give the dog a home. This started with him waking me up in the middle of the night and trying to carry on a conversation with me. That went well. There are so many reasons why this is a bad idea. For one, the dog is too big, and not allowed in our apartment complex. For another, we have a timid little rabbit that is sitting in her cage in another room, who hasn't been let out all evening because of this dog. Plus, oh, let's see. Who do you think would end up taking care of the beast?

So we finally go and I agree to visit the dog. That's this morning. We take rabbit with us so that I can prove to James that it's a bad idea. Only, oddly enough she seemed completely unperturbed with the presence of this dog (although that quickly changed once the dog intruded on her turf). So I was convinced. Partially. Enough. The dog came home.

In the parking lot. Dog hops out. Crawls underneath the car. Refuses to budge. Friendly demeanor gone. Growls and bites when we try to drag him out. Sandwich meat proves a partially successful motivator. Slips out of collar. Runs loose in the parking lot. James uses leash as a choke collar. We find out the dog doesn't know how to walk up steps. Final effort to get the dog in the apartment involves carrying a very unhappy pooch up the steps.

Now that he's here, he's content and docile as can be. But still. I'm not taking him outside. If he has to pee, it's going to have to be in the apartment. At least until James comes home.

I think this dog has to go. Oh, and I definitely felt his teeth on me in the parking lot. That's not cool. I like my vegetarian rabbit. She only nibbles at me. And she definitely doesn't scare me.

K