Arts and Crafts

It ain’t always so.

I could pretend I don’t know how it happened, but I certainly wouldn’t be fooling myself. Our resident Wolf was in Belarus during their election in December, and when I started hearing reports about the protests, I started stressing (even more than the stress I already had from our holiday schedule, ballet and karate schedules, my fiscal woes, and trying to run the household alone). Sure enough, he (and his big camera) were in the thick of the happenings; but fortunately, he left before things turned ugly. I’m hopeful he’ll say more about that himself here, so I won’t continue in that vein.

A girlfriend and I celebrated her birthday and rocked the new year in down in Seattle, spending the day doing touristy stuff and enjoying a Dusty 45s show that night. The tickets came with a generous food and/or liquor credit, which we didn’t know about. Seeing as we’d had (excellent) room service at our hotel, we drank ours. She was recuperating from a throat bug, but I was feeling fine and didn’t want anything to be wasted ... so I drank the remains of her (not as good as it sounded on the menu) ginger vodka martini. Then we shared a second bottle of champagne—I did mention we’d had a bottle in our room, kinda–sorta with dinner, right? She urged some precautionary zinc on me upon our return to the hotel, which I obligingly accepted (this involved no sharing of germs).

Three days later, I awoke to discover that microscopic bricklayers had filled every nook of my sinuses, and had tapped in to my energy stores to accomplish the feat. Bereft of energy, in pain if the hair on my head moved, I quickly took to bed. I was even too tired and brain–fogged to knit, even just plain stockinette stitch (I have three pairs of slippers like these to knit and felt). I lost count of the number of blankets it took to keep me warm. I was confident, however, that I’d bounce back fairly quickly.

The next day, I awoke to pain in my right ear, which spread to my left by the time night fell.

I still haven’t completely bounced back, but I am doing much better. My ears are still mostly under water, but my head no longer hurts. However, I’m also still easily dizzified, so I’m trying to take it easy (no driving, and certainly no karate!). A recent conversation with a different good friend covered a lot of interesting musical ground, though, prompting me to turn on my speakers and try to enjoy some tunes. I’m sure it’ll all sound better when my ears are fully clear, but I wanna share today. Mr. Bill, Uncle Warren, I hope either or both of you are around for an assist or two.

Snolf the First and I have been; and Snolf the Second is eagerly awaiting her turn.

Hoo boy ...

Well, kinda–sorta. We’re still settling in to the new place, and between that and other things that keep on flowing, it seems that there isn’t much happening here that’s worth talking about.

It’s a simple idea, really; but all the same, I’d like to test it before investing a lot of time and effort into it.

Notice how I coyly avoid taking responsibility for the situation. I’ll try again.

Hello, my name is Sunni and I have a problem: I adore yarn.

I have no bloody idea why this is titled The Great Radish Famine, but I’m sure the reason why I’m sharing it will be clear:


(YouTube link to the vid)

Hope you’re smiling over it as much as I do every time I see it.

(Edited to add that I originally found the vid at Ravelry.)

I mean, I figured out how to knit cables. And I am all kinds of pleased with myself for accomplishing that.

I can’t really say I was surprised to see it; after all, as information dispersal transitions from (relatively) expensive and slow to essentially free and fast, people need to adjust their thinking as well as their business models. But I was surprised to see how much control some designers think they should have over their knitting patterns.

Despite driving all over two counties yesterday—and getting a later start than I’d wanted on my day—I got a fair amount accomplished yesterday. I’ve already hinted at the first ...

I had been slowly working at cleaning and organizing my desk area [yes, again!] ... but with my computer out of commission I have more time offline than I’m accustomed to. So, over the weekend I started to get serious about organizing my mess—and in the process, rediscovered gold: a disc of music Warren Bluhm gave the snolfs and me some years back, titled The Will to Fly.

Hell, civilized individuals wouldn’t let their enemies garden like this!

Knitting project, that is. Not bad, since I started it at around 6 p.m. yesterday!

Woo hoo!