Yikes!

Gosh, I can't believe how busy it's been around here! I have had so many posts planned, but I haven't had time for any of them! And just 3 days 'till Christmas! whoa.

But I had to take a minute to post this little holiday treat. I read about it on Ravelry.

Go to Google, and then type in the search bar "let it snow" (minus the quotes), and then let it search.

Sit back and enjoy!

I hope you're having a great pre-Christmas week. I know I am! Ludi is off this week, so we're doing all sorts of Christmassy things. Maybe next week I'll be able to catch up here!


xxx

Friday again!

Happy Friday everyone! How are things going? Anyone got any interesting plans for the weekend? Oooh! Those famous meteor showers are this week, aren’t they? The ones that are every August? Has anyone been scanning the skies for shooting stars? The moon is full tonight, so it will be a little hard to see anything. Assuming it isn’t cloudy. Like it probably will be here. We’ve had the most miserable summer ever, I think? Frankly, it’s alright by me since I don’t like it too hot, but most folks are pretty disappointed with the weather here. Rainy and cold. It’s more like fall than summer. We’ll hardly experience a change of seasons!  Hopefully this doesn’t mean we’re going to have another bad winter. Yuck. (Again...fine by me!!! Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.)

I cast on the socks I mentioned in the previous post the other day. I’ve finished one, and started another.

wow, that’s a weird heel on that there sock

My first sock was not quite a success. It wasn’t a complete disaster since it WILL, in fact, actually fit onto my foot, but it’s just not what I was picturing in my mind.

I always picture fanTAStic successes in my head when I first try new projects. Is that cocky? As in “Of course you’ll be able to do magical things with your talent!” Or is it just ignorance? As in “You’ve never done this pattern, but what could possibly go wrong?” Maybe a bit of both.

Anyways, I was thinking that I would be all fancy with this First Sock Ever, making the toes, heels and cuff a different color, with a white stripe seperating the two colors. But the pattern didn’t call for color changes. I figured I could just figure it out as I went along. Well, the toe went great. Easy as could be. But the heel.... yeah, you can see where it went wrong there. I started the heel flap bit with the color change, but it became too complicated. I had to either wrap and turn on each row, or carry the instep color yarn across the heel. I decided to just let go of the awesome sock that was pictured in my head, and just try to figure out the pattern and how to make a sock with a heel with no holes in it.

My next sock is a different pattern. It still doesn’t call for color changes, but the heel is knit differently (afterthought heel, for those knitters out there), so it will be MUCH easier to change the colors. When it’s done I’ll show it off show it to you.

Oh, on a side note here, I found a temporary solution to tripod problems in my photo studio (aka The Kitchen).

 bringin’ it into focus

Clever, huh? I always have empties hanging around. They do make an attachment for cameras that can be screwed to bottles (just like a lid) for just this sort of thing. I don’t have one of those. I just rest the camera on the bottle top.

Darn handy.


xxx

Another Finished Project

Even after the Great Knitting Meltdown of 2011, I am still totally hooked on knitting. I cannot seem to stop myself. As soon as I finish one project, I start another. All the while I’m looking at patterns online, thinking about The Needles I Have, The Needles I Want, and yarn too. Don’t even get me started on The Yarn I Want.

oh, the things I could make.

Anyways, here is my latest Finished Item. I showed you a sneak peak the other day. Did you guess what it was? It might have been a little hard to tell from that photo. Here, will this help?

tadaaaaaaaah!!!

It's a pair of mittens! Not just any ol’ pair of mittens though. HANDmade mittens. By MY not-so-little ol’ hands! With a coolo-neato thumb gusset/gore/thingie! Can you see it? Going across the palm? Ain’t she purty?

I don’t know why I am fascinated by this type of thumb treatment. It's just different. You don't see it all the time. If ever. It was amazingly easy and makes a fitted kind of mitten. I love it!

And the yarn... well...I have no idea what yarn it is. I got it in Appeldorn last year (on that stash buying trip, remember?) It was in the sale bins, three balls in a clear plastic bag, with no tags at all. I have no idea who made it, what the color’s called, what size needle I should have used for it, or what’s in it. Is it acrylic? Wool? I have no idea. Which is a shame, really. If anyone reading this recognizes it, can you let me know what it is?

So there it is. My latest project. And yes, now that this one is done, I have started my next.

Socks.

I realized something while taking the picture for this post. Well, two things. First one is: the only place I can get decent lighting for a closeup picture like this is on my kitchen counter. It didn’t help that it was a little cloudy.

The second is that I need a taller tripod. I had my camera attached to the little travel tripod that we have (the only one we have, I think), and that was balanced on top of our water kettle, which was balanced on top of a wooden box that holds teas. I should have taken a photo of that set up! My college photography teacher would be ashamed. But there was so little light that I kept getting blurry pictures. I could have just upped the...what is it, the ISO? It was set to 100. I could have taken it to 1600 or something, but then I get grainy pictures. I hate grainy pictures unless that is what you’re aiming for. So I kept the ISO at 100 and assembled that makeshift tripod.

I’ll have to work on finding better camera support.

What do you think of my mittens?


xxx

Phone Photos

I’ve had my current cell phone for almost two years now, and I only realized it could do this a few weeks ago.

click to enlarge slightly

Panorama!!!

It’s actually six different photos. Well, six different poses. It’s probably about a 180-degree photo. It's not terribly big or high-res, but still cool huh? Imagine the possibilities! Like at a really cool place to take a panorama photo, instead of a cemetery. Though as far as cemeteries go, it’s a nice one.

Hmmm....I wonder what else my phone can do?

*looks for the “Clean my House” button*


xxx

Labor Day Trip

No, we don't have Labor Day here, but it was a trip on Monday September 6th, so I'll call it the Labor Day Trip.

We were having some more computer problems, so we had to take a drive to the company that sold us the computer for some repairs. That's a 2 1/2 hour drive from here, so we decided to make a day of it (since we'd be in the car all day anyways). Ok, so maybe I decided to make a day of it when I realized that the online shop that I order yarn from has an actual store in a town just half an hour from where we had to take the computer. What luck!

And I talked Ludi into it, which was even more luck!

I am so glad I talked him into it. It was an awesome store. Everything they had online, they had in stock! That sometimes doesn't happen, you know? There were so many yarns to choose from. And it was so great to be able to see them in real life, their actual color, rather than picking from a photo online and hoping that the real thing was somewhat close to what is on my screen! And also be able to feel them, to know if they're too scratchy or whatever. It was great!

This is what I bought.

the haul from the Hall

I got a lot, huh? There is enough for 5 different projects, I think. Unless I combine the gray and green yarns on the side (in the plastic bags). I haven't really decided what I'm doing with those yarns yet. These, I know what I'm doing with already.

first project

I'll share a Ta-Da! post when it's ready.

It was a great day for a driving trip too. Sunny, not too hot. There wasn't a whole lot of traffic either. There was only one traffic jam that we got caught in on the way home. It was rush-hour time, afterall, so it was bound to happen. But we still enjoyed it.

Ludi too, since his computer got fixed. yay! Let's hope it stays this way.


 And since it's Friday, September 10 today I have to say

to Aunt Val! I hope that she has a fantabulous birthday today, and celebrates over the entire weekend. That's what you're supposed to do when your birthday lands on a Friday. The whole weekend is then your birthday. 72-hours worth of b-day.


Have a great weekend, everyone! Talk to you soon...


xxx

A techy weekend

What a gorgeous day here today. Weather-wise, that is. It's cool, in the high 60s, and mostly sunny. There is also a lovely breeze making all the leaves on the trees rustle. A lovely sound, don't you think?

How is the weather where you are?

We have had a techy kind of weekend. Doing maintenance, and backing up files and all that. Some of it went smoothly, and some didn't. That's the thing about technology. It's fanTAStic when it goes smoothly and works just as it should. But when it doesn't, it is a real pain in the you-know-what. And sometimes things can go horribly wrong. I'm sure you all have computer-related horror stories, so you know what we went through this weekend. Bleh!

I finally broke down and bought an external HD to back up my files.

Western Digital My Passport Studio

It's so tiny! It's hard to believe they can fit 500GB into such a tiny package. Actually they probably can fit MORE space into an even smaller package. (Technology is a wonder!) It makes the 60GB hard drive inside my computer seem really puny. Anyways, I chose this particular drive because it was reviewed by a Mac magazine that we get from the UK, MacFormat. They tested 5 different external hard drives in various areas, and this model won. I figured they knew their stuff, so I took their advice. It's nice because you can connect it via a USB cable, OR a FireWire cable. So if I lose one cord, I'll have a back up. ;)

Now that we have had a few months of summer, I'm really looking forward to fall. Especially now that there have been a few days of almost fall-like weather. I don't want it to snow, yet, but sweatshirt weather is always something to look forward to.


Till next time,


xxx

Another hooking project...

Hi folks! Having a good week? No complaints here so far! Ludi’s computer is working again, which makes him happy. And that makes me happy too. We had ordered a new one for him (a used one, but new to us!) because his old one was quite slow and couldn’t be updated/upgraded anymore. It was still working though, so we weren’t in a huge hurry to replace it. But of course, as soon as we completed the transaction for a replacement, it decided to throw a temper tantrum and stop working. We tried everything we could think of doing (for days!), and nothing would get that thing to start back up correctly.  When The Replacement finally arrived, it was not what we had ordered. Fast forward a week, through an angry email, and two phone calls, the missing parts were finally delivered and we could get back on track. (Note to self: NEVER use that company again! We actually still have to make another phone call or email to them, because things STILL aren’t right. Grrrr. I hate poor customer service.) Anyways, things are going OK now on the computer front. phew!

On the crafts front, I can finally show everyone the scarf I made for Mom. It’s been delivered now, so I can’t spoil the surprise anymore.

 Mom’s scarf

It’s black really thick yarn (Lion Brand Wool-Ease) for the scarf itself, and a yellow-green wool for the flowers (she picked that one out). It was fun to make! The scarf came together really fast. I got the pattern from Lion Brand Yarn’s website (linky here). The flowers I found all over the internet. It was great to be able to make all sorts of flowers too! Hopefully I didn’t go overboard with the flowers... I hear that Old Man Winter is still tearing up the East Coast in the USA, so maybe Mom will still be able to get some wear out of it this year!

Speaking of Old Man Winter, I heard from Mom that in Coudersport they have had 68.9 inches of snow since October. Holy igloos, Batman!  The average is only 58.6 inches, and the record is ... well, I can't find the record snowfall amount for one season. But I just want it to snow about 3.2 inches more, so we can say they had over 6 feet of snow!!! Ha! How horrifying.

I'll see you again soon!

Got SNOW?

Hi! Did everyone have a good weekend? I think it was quite a snowy one for a lot of you! I spent many an hour looking at the pictures of all of the snow in the Washington, DC area. It was so very pretty, but I cannot imagine getting that much snow all at once. I hope you all made it through it OK! On top of the snowfall, it was SuperBowl weekend! Since the Steelers weren't playing in it this year, I didn't stay awake till 5am to watch it. Plus I really only ever watch for the commercials, and they don't show those here, so what's the point?

It was a sort of nervous weekend for me. I had to take a test on Monday, part of the language courses I'm taking here. Thankfully this is the last test I will have to take for them. Unless I didn't pass, that is. (Oh man, I hope I passed!!!)

I had planned on telling you all about my language courses, but... it's just way too long. (And my posts are long enough, I think!) Just suffice it to say that they teach us language and how to interact in Dutch society (and a little Dutch history too). There are four parts to the courses to pass in order to get the diploma. I took 3 of the tests in October (passed them all! yay!!!), and had the final one Monday. If I passed it, then I finally get my diploma and can stop worrying about tests. Man, they're terrible on my nerves! I'll let you know the results when I get them.

Since we were parked at a mall on Monday (the test was in Eindhoven, which is an hour's drive away from where we live), we did a little shopping after my test. There were Apple stores to go into! Two, even! YES! Love them Apple stores! Even if we can't afford much of anything in there, it sure is really nice to go in and drool over the gigantic monitors. They do not have any of those nifty iPads here in the Netherlands yet, so we didn't get to fondle one yet. But I'm sure we will soon!

One thing I could afford was some Cool Feet for my laptop.

I got this from their website

http://www.bluelounge.com/coolfeet.php

They're little suction cup things that you can attach to the bottom of the laptop, to keep it elevated and keep air circulating to keep the machine a little cooler. Plus they help to tilt the keyboard a little bit, so it's a little easier on your wrists. Cool, huh? I'm liking them!

I know that some of the East Coast is supposed to get more snow today and tomorrow, so I hope you stay safe. Enjoy it from inside!

Last day of January already?!

Hello everyone! I hope you're all having a good weekend. Mine is moving along just fine. Too fast, though. Don't they always? We were planning on going out to see a movie tonight, but Old Man Winter thought otherwise. We got some snow here, and since they don't deal well with snow in this country, we decided it was better to just play it safe and stay in. Yay for Pajama Sundays!! (We do this so often we've named it! Isn't that pathetic?)

Since I found myself with some free time, I thought I'd try a new recipe I've been meaning to have a go at. It's Brownie Cupcakes by Martha Stewart (she gives a lot of inspiration with her recipes and crafts!).

Don't they look deelish??

She put chocolate frosting on hers, but I tried mine with peanut butter frosting. They turned out fantastic! The frosting does not measure up to Grammie's chocolate-peanut butter frosting, but that's ok. Nothing ever will live up to that!

And in an effort to keep my blog from being way too girly, here's some techie stuff. Have you SEEN the latest Apple gizmo? The iPad? Go check it out here. At first I was thinking "oh, it's just a giant iTouch" and "who would really need this thing?"  But I kept thinking about it (which is probably what Apple had planned all along!), and realized that *I* could use this thing! The portability of it. All the cool apps, not to mention the big standards (email, photos, music). And if I had some disposable income, I probably would be out buying one right now. What a fun toy that would be to play with!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! I'll talk to you soon...