Different kind of To-Do list

Things I am going to do (or at least attempt to do!) while I am kid-less during the day this week:

1. Add the ribbon to the Tiramisu Blanket I started back in June of last year for a baby that is now about 3 months old...

2. Finish the chemo cap for the friend of a friend (I'm approaching halfway done!)

3. Actually catch up on laundry! (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is possible!....for a few hours, at least! LOL)

4. Begin on the next hooded scarf that I have been commissioned to make

5. Blog (I'm going to aim to post daily...I still have a bunch of those 30 Days of Letters to write!)

6. Read (I have a book I just started last night that I want to finish!)

7. Play my music as loudly as I can while doing housework (I won't be interrupting any little ones from their movies or playtime!!!) and sing along obnoxiously!

8. Enjoy the silence while blogging and reading

9. Explore the town I live in a little bit!

10. Make (and document) at least one item of a crafting nature (and I'm talking thinking outside the yarn box!)

11. And if I have time....level one of my World of Warcraft characters to level 40! LOL

So ambitious of me...I guess I'd better get to it!!!

Crafting update!

Whew!!! The end of the Lanthir Lamath KAL has come to a close! I finished both scarves!!! Hooray! :D I finished off the blue, non-hooded one on Tuesday, and stayed up last night until the gray, hooded one was complete as well. :) Today (as in, right this moment!), they are upstairs, blocking!!! I can't wait for them to finish drying so I can "ooo" and "ahh" over the end result! :D (Though I really do hate the smell of wet wool...LOL) I'll be taking a bunch of pictures, for sure, this weekend! The recipient of the gray scarf is coming to visit for the weekend, and she's really good with a camera and uber-model pretty. :) So look for pictures of those this next week!

In other crafting news...a friend of a friend has just started chemotherapy, so I'm making her this hat in a purple chenille yarn. Once I got past the ribbing (endless K1, P1...except to make the lines cleaner and more stretchy, I did a seemingly endless ribbing of K1tbl, P1tbl), it picked up big time, and I wouldn't be in the least surprised if I finished it before next week!

Other than that....I've been commissioned to make a hooded scarf in white, which I'll be staring as soon as I'm finished with this cancer/chemo cap, and it is going to be sooooooooo soft! And I've not yet made a single sale on Etsy. :( I know, those kinds of things take time, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed a little...I plan to add some yarn-ish goods to the beaded ones soon, so maybe that will help. Though I do have someone clamoring for a Time Turner! ;D


And now...for the "dark side" to my post...you may recall that I earlier said I have the scarves blocking upstairs. But my craft room is downstairs. So why is all this not taking place in there? One simple reason: my craft room has a new resident. And it creeps me out beyond description. I have a serious case of arachnophobia. It's horrible. I can't look at spiders or even pictures of spiders without shuddering and instantly brushing myself off with my hands, just to make sure that it's just my skin crawling, and not a spider on me! Sometimes I even have to shower to get rid of that feeling. I'm not sure why it's such a big deal to me, seeing as I have a significant size advantage, but I can't seem to help it. I'm terrified of the disgusting things. I'll kill them when I have no other option (like when The Instigator is deployed and can't make it the thousands of miles home to kill it for me). I've even had friends over that I've begged to save me from those nasty things. I'm a complete, screaming, mess. So when this HUGE spider showed up in my craft room....well, I spend as little time as possible in there! I keep one eye semi-on it, just to make sure it doesn't move, and get what I need as quick as humanly possible and get out! (Eesh, even as I'm typing this, I'm having to brush myself off! Ew!) I've even had nightmares about this spider, evidently, as The Instigator says I was freaking out in my sleep about it, swatting it and whatnot. And even worse, half the time I'm in there, it's hanging out on the ceiling!!!!!!! I'm just glad I have no cause to get close enough to where it could fall on me! EW!!!!!! (Okay, I need to wrap this up...I need a shower...lol) I have no idea how I managed this without hyperventilating or anything, but I managed to take a picture of this thing just so you all can see how disgusting this one is! (And why it's claimed the territory of my craft room and why it's so far been left that way!...The Instigator is being lazy about it, and it's a bit irritating...) I have GOT to get some eucalyptus plants for my house! (I hear they repel spiders.) I'm talking at least one for each room, here! Okay, if you want to see the picture of this craft-room-stealing monster, scroll down....if not...I DON'T BLAME YOU!!! Now, I'm off to shower this skin-crawling sensation away...

Doggone it...

I know, I know. I've been silent for a looooooooooooooong time over here. That's because I have been so involved with the HSKS swap, and I have a special "Potter blog" for it that I've been keeping up on. :) I recently took a trip to Edinburgh that I'm currently blogging about over there, so feel free to swing by and check that out...

Of course, my silence wasn't helped at all by the amount of my time that was being consumed--no, make that devoured--by playing World of Warcraft. (Yes, I am a nerd, and yes, I realize it.) ;) However, I am now off my "WoW kick" and back to knitting and crocheting like a maniac! I finished a fourth set of cancer caps (Yay!) and realized how much I'd slacked off on them! I will be working on them more diligently in the near future. For the moment, however, I cast on a hat for me! It's not often, at least that I've noticed, for a crafter to keep any of their creations themselves. Most of the time we gift them for holidays or birthdays or baby showers or weddings or something. Well, today I decided to use the yummy yarn that I bought in Edinburgh for myself. I cast on the Hermione cable and eyelet hat. It's a beautiful hat, and the yarn I have is super soft! I want to make it so that I can have something small, Potter-wise, to wear to the premiere of Half-Blood Prince...So I started it, and the whole time am thinking "Wow, that's a tall ribbing....am I really only halfway through it?...that's just a really tall section of ribbing!...maybe I should adapt it...I don't like ribbing that tall....it doesn't look right..." While I was telling myself these things, I just kept knitting. (I have been having a Potter-a-thon, and when I'm knitting or crocheting in front of the TV, I tend to just go on autopilot...) I didn't check the gauge. I should have, but I didn't. I got 13 rows into the 16 row ribbing before I finally checked it...and wouldn't you know, I was off. Le sigh. So now...Yeah, I'm going to rip it. Gauge it. Start again. No fun. :( But, on the plus side, I'm only on the third movie...that means I have plenty of time to frog and cast on again and I should be able to still finish the hat before I run out of Potter to watch! LOL I think the general consensus on Ravelry is that if you didn't make gauge with (US) size 5 needles, try a 2 or 3....so, here I go!

Happy, happy, happy day!!!

Lately A has taken to expressing his likes with saying, "I love (enter object/activity)!" It's so cute! Last night it was all about dancing. "I love dancing! I love to dance!" Well, he just said one that gave me warm fuzzies! "I love books!" Yay! That's my boy!!!

I've still been making lots of hats, but seem to be losing my steam! (Maybe if I keep yarn in my hands at all times, A will next say that he loves yarn...heeheehee!) I finished 3 more hats and started a fourth, but just have a hard time keeping at it. I'm not sure why. I almost wondered a little bit if it was because I messed it up. I changed needle size on the Claudia hat sooner than I was supposed to, and didn't feel like frogging back to where I messed up, so I just kept going. I have a hard time continuing with a project I know isn't my best work, but I really don't feel like undoing it all! That's so much knitting! It doesn't look bad. In fact, if you didn't know I made that mistake, you probably wouldn't even notice that the trellis work is going to poof out a little bit. I even started a 5th hat (crochet...the 4th is knit) to see if maybe it was the speed of the craft that made me less inclined to pick it back up, but I'm not feeling pushed to finish that one, either. I will keep at it, though. I've got people waiting on these hats! As it is, the last set that was supposed to be mailed out a week ago may have finally just been sent out today. We had to wait for payday. I can't believe that I've made so many, though! I'm sending them out in groups, so I've not really seen it as getting so many done, but the first set I sent out was 7 hats and the second set was 9, and I've finished 3 hats of the 3rd set....that's 19 hats!!! And a in pretty short amount of time, too!

In other news...Ravenclaw did not catch the snitch last night. It's very sad. I want to congratulate the 'Puffs for getting it (especially since they prevented Slytherin from getting it, lol), but I'm not done moping yet. We were so close to getting it!!! ::sigh::

But on a (much) happier note....I'M GOING TO SALZBURG!!!!!!!!!! It's not until this weekend, but I am soooooooooo excited! Kristin and I are going to the Christmas Market there and hopefully do some sightseeing, like Mozart's birthplace. If we had enough time (which I was told we likely wouldn't, unfortunately), we could even go see where parts of The Sound of Music was filmed. That would be beyond awesome! I grew up watching that musical! And after that trip, I've got Thanksgiving plans to really put into play! We're having Kristin and Collin, the Fishers, Karl and Natasha, and Dan all over for dinner! That's 7 adults and 4 kids (that eat table foods...Collin and Riley don't yet...)! And I've got to have a clean house and everything lined up to clarify who's bringing what! It's going to be FUN! So I certainly have enough to keep me busy! Now I'm off to make myself finish that "Claudia" hat...

Back online...again...I think...

It seems as though I'm finally back online. Again. Hopefully, this time for good...

In the time I was offline (and chafing at the fact that I was so out of the loop with the swap) I was able to make a second set of cancer caps to send out. (I just have to wait to send them out until payday...*sigh*) I'm actually quite proud of the results!



I definitely prefer to crochet the hats, as it goes soooooooo much faster, but I love the look of the knit hats a lot, plus knitting takes a lot less yarn than crocheting. Only one of the hats in the last set was knit (the black one).

Here's the first set:



That set has 3 knit hats (the middle row), but to be honest, the middle hat (which, yes, is a Gryffindor House Hat) didn't go out because it was insanely and comically large. It was my first ever knit hat, and I didn't know how big to make it, so I went with the large size. Yeah, it came out large alright! LOL I still have a few more on my to-do list to make...

In other news...my boys are driving me batty! They're constantly fighting and screaming and throwing tantrums. I just wish they had an off switch. Or, better yet, that I had a Vanishing Cabinet so that I could toss them inside it for a few hours at least, to give myself some peace and quiet where I could actually craft without being interrupted for having to break up a fight or settle a sharing dispute. I guess that it's just one of the many "perks" of motherhood. I'll be very relieved when they pass out of their current stages. Especially the 2-year-old.

I was able to send my package for Draco off by the early deadline, last Friday, the 7th. :) I really can't wait until he gets it and I hear about how much he likes it! Or at least, I hope he likes it...lol I haven't been able to really do many projects as of late. I made the tree skirt for the US troops that are deployed at the front lines, Draco's handmade item(s), and hats. Lots and lots and lots of hats. In fact, my husband asked me how many I was going to make. LOL I have even told him that I'm making them for cancer patients going through chemotherapy, and he asks "how many?"...the male mind, I guess. It's not like there's a set number of people that are going through chemo. But right now it's time to feed my boys. Hopefully a little lunch will put them in a better mood...

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Now playing: Jessica Simpson - A Little Bit
via FoxyTunes

Trick or Treat!

Wow! Today certainly has not calmed my fear of owls! I received a package today from Bevin Rae that took multiple owls to carry it! I nearly ran away in fright at the sight of all those birds winging their way toward me, but once Rowena and Ophelia C. assured me they carried something for me and were not merely erratic birds (nor were they as over-excited as the bunch of owls that landed me in St. Mungo’s), I relaxed. A little bit, anyhow. :)

The package was for our in-House Trick-or-Treat swap, and I was blown away at how much there was inside! At first I couldn’t believe it was for that swap, as Olive said to use a bubbled envelope. I thought she meant a small one. I almost feel bad for how small and simple mine was that went out. Bevin used a bubbled envelope, but it was a large one.

I got a knit sock pattern, a crochet scarf pattern, a kit to make a Halloween garland, a witch pez dispenser, a post card from California, a candy corn candy holder STUFFED with candy (I don’t know how she got it all in there!), 4 pairs of plastic vampire teeth, and some Ravenclaw blue ink that I used with my quill tonight. :D On top of all that, there was also another envelope in there stuffed with fun craft goodies from her kiddos to mine!

My boys were very excited to see it all and were quite upset with me when I told them it was too late for them to get into it tonight. (I didn’t get the package until my husband got home.) They seemed to be pacified, though, with a sticker each and to each play with a set of the fangs. Tomorrow we’ll be crafty. :)

I’ve been keeping myself quite busy with S.P.E.W. as of late. I still haven’t heard anything about anything officially this term for it, so I’ve kind of just gone my own way and done my own chapter of it, if you will. As October is breast cancer awareness month, I’ve been making free beanie-style hats, some knit and some crochet, for cancer patients losing their hair because of going through chemotherapy. The first 7 I made are long gone, and I’ve got another 15 to send out yet. Over the past couple of days, I’ve finished 3 of those needed 15, and am working on the 4^th.

I am really not happy with the fact that our Internet is down again. I had started to get back into playing WoW, and was actively leveling my paladin, trying to prepare for the expansion by making level 70 before the release on November 13^th. The other night, I got up to two bars away from making level 66 and was in the midst of getting the seasonal achievements for Hallow’s End…and I got booted offline. I’m trying to give the Italians the benefit of the doubt that it was caused by the massive storm that we’ve had going on over the span of the past couple of days, even though it stormed the whole day before it cut off that night and that it was clear out today and we’re still not back online, but given that they’ve shut us off twice in the last 8 months, it’s hard. They had better not have disconnected us again. (The Italians will shut off your Internet without any cause, just so they can charge you the reconnect fee to get a little extra money, and it ticks me off! They get away with it!) If they did, they’d better hope it’s my husband dealing with them, because I’ll have no patience with them. Especially since we’ve been back online from the last time for maybe a month! I guess only time will tell, though…

Tomorrow (Halloween), there’s a carnival going on at the base in the afternoon, so I’m hoping I can get my boys to actually wear their costumes (they wouldn’t the other night) and get some pictures. Here’s hoping!

So, thank you, Bevin Rae for the spectacular trick-or-treat package! I absolutely love it! I feel quite spoiled!

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Now playing: Eberhard Kraus - Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565
via FoxyTunes

Ahh, that's better...

Whew! Some of the pressure has been let off! I finished the round ripple tree skirt last night.

You can't tell from the pictures, very well, but the middle red, green and white section is done with the Red Heart Holiday Yarn...it's got silver sparkles in it...never again will I buy that yarn! It's too painful!!! The overall effect once it's done is nice, but in my opinion, not really worth it. My finger felt like steel wool was being rubbed across it. Ouch!

But as of this morning, it went off to join the other donations for the deployed troops on the front range. I didn't make it very large, but that's because their tree is only 4.5' tall...I hope they like it!

In other news, I finished another hat!

Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and I've still not heard anything about S.P.E.W. through HSKS for this term, I've decided to do my own little chapter of S.P.E.W. I'm making hats free for cancer patients undergoing chemo, and I am also going to sell some on eBay, with the proceeds going to cancer research. Here are all the hats I've finished so far:

I also got my Trick or Treat package sent off to my Ravenclaw "spoilee" yesterday morning. My owl, Sylus, took off dutifully and purposefully. I hope they get it quickly!!! :) I can't wait to hear the reaction to my trick...it's absolutely priceless!

So now I'm just down to working on the Special Olympics scarves and finishing up on Draco's package! Yay! ::scampers off to work on said projects::

Up to my ears in it!

Wow!!! So much homework needing completed in this Ravenclaw dorm room! The hats for cancer patients is going to be an ongoing thing, likely through the whole winter, which is well past the end of this term. The same goes for the Special Olympics scarves. I'm trying new forms of Transfiguration for those, stitches I've never tried before. And the first one is coming out quite well, if I do say so myself! On top of all that, I'm attempting a modified version of a Transfiguration spell I am very adept at: the round ripple! I'm making a Christmas tree skirt in a round ripple variation! Donations are being taken at our local military base to go with the tree that they sent down to our deployed troops on the front range. On top of all that, I've still got some Potions to finish up! I've been collecting the ingredients for a little while, and I still have a couple more to get, but I can't wait to put it all together and mail it off to Draco! Plus I need to get the final ingredient for the Trick or Treat potion to send to...my fellow Ravenclaw! :) The identity of my housemate I'm sending to is a secret until they get their package. :) I bought the Ravenclaw item when I was in Venice, so I really hope they like it!!! I know I do! LOL

On top of all that, I have requests from a family member to do some research for the Italian-themed Christmas they're having this year (in honor of us being here) and to find a sock monkey pattern to make them for my nieces. :) And I found a free crochet pattern that I'm going to use. I'm definitely going to have to tweak it a bit...it definitely needs longer arms and legs, and I may have to adjust the rest accordingly...in the meantime, I smell a surprise from one of my two boys. I'd better go and locate the source and get it taken care of, and then I'm off to work more on my Transfiguration and S.P.E.W. awareness. I swear that campaign never rests...::sigh::