It’s Furious Balancing

I haven’t felt the blogging compulsion, and I’ve been struggling through these last, ghastly days of summer. Hate heat. Hate sunlight. If God had meant for us to go outside, She wouldn’t have invented air conditioning

So, what you get today, Gentle Reader, is a hodge-podge of completely unrelated material. Oh, and a LOLCat. I haven’t posted a LOLCat in quite a while.

Moving on.

I have been gaming with a passion. Morrowind, specifically. I’ve been feeling the need to spend time in a game with a well-developed lore system, which Morrowind has in spades and which Oblivion (the sequel to Morrowind) almost completely disregarded. Oblivion was flashy. The graphics were very pretty. It was soulless underneath all the pretty pictures, though. I haven’t been MMORPG-ing lately, either, for partially the same reason. In Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, I don’t understand the lore, or how the various races all relate to one another, and who hates who and who’s doing what to whom. I find that if I don’t have a reason for slaying the monsters/saving the princess/whatever, my motivation evaporates.

So, I’ve been in Vvardenfell once again. The latest incarnation of Laiane Wolfsong, Ranger and Opportunist, reached 40-something level and became incredibly bored. I don’t know about you other gamers out there, but if I’m not challenged, I lose interest quickly. So, new character time! Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you Haizea Phoenixborn, Blade Dancer. Let’s give the little lady a big hand…

I have no earthly idea how she’s keeping that bodice from pooling around her waist. Hollywood Fashion Tape?

Anyhow, for those of you who are interested, a Blade Dancer is a lightly armored, high-agility fighter (long sword, specifically) with magical abilities in the schools of Mysticism and Illusion.

For those of you who are not interested, here’s the picture I’ve been promising of He Who Makes Silly Cat Shirts wearing his silly cat shirt. Silly Cat sold separately.

This is the first sewing project The Husband undertook. I don’t know how many patterns pieces were involved. Eleven? He was very methodical and put it together over the course of a few days. I think it turned out very well, and I’m quite impressed with his talent. Buttons!? Interfacing?! That’s far beyond my meager talents.

A three-day weekend approaches; I hope to be posting more frequently.  Or not.  I might just stay in Vvardenfell for a while.

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. — Jose Luis Borges

Well, in my Paradise, it wouldn’t exactly be a library because I would want to eat gooey caramel-filled chocolates and take bubble baths while I read. Real libraries frown on that sort of reckless behavior.

“Libraries” make you keep their books at arm’s length, and I’ve always been of the opinion that you should love your books hard. Live with them. Write in them. Get chocolate on them when you lose yourself in the words and have a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup melt in your page-turning hand. I’ve dropped a few of my books in the bathtub, and a great deal have some humidity damage. People with pristine books make me suspicious: Have you actually read your books? How can one tell?

I am careful with books I borrow from other people, certainly, but those times are few and far between. I confess to having no self control in book stores and, frankly, I don’t want to.

I recall reading in one of those “declutter your house” books an author theorized that books represent knowledge and people are reluctant to part with them because owning books means you own the knowledge in the book. He also says, and I quote, “If they don’t fit on your shelves, they shouldn’t be in your home.”

Well, I don’t believe small children should be in a home until they’re toilet trained and can dress themselves, so I’ll let him slide by with that specious comment.

Well, I’m back. Kinda. Sorta. I don’t have a tremendous amount I want to blog about but I have to get back in the saddle, as it were.

Item No. One:  I got my Ravelry invite.  I haven’t done anything except set my user name and password because I have this feeling that I will be Sucked Into it Like a Black Hole.  I might not emerge for days.  Weeks.

Item No. Two: There’s a new activity going on at Chez Martha-Stewart-Doesn’t-Live-Here. A few Fridays back, The Husband bought a sewing machine. He’s been wanting to buy one for a while now, and since his root canal appointment that Friday didn’t come to pass, he went shopping instead.

It’s a sweet little machine. I haven’t played around with it yet, but I will soon. I have pants to hem and such, and I will ask He-Who-Buys-Cheesy-Fabrics to give me the low-down.

I’ve bought some fabric and a shirt pattern for myself, but knitting inspires me more than sewing. I can get into a good meditative groove with the knitting. Sewing seems like a very focused activity — you’re fitting the pieces together in a very methodical way. I like to be able to “zone out” with the knitting. Less stressful. But, it’s always good to learn new skills, etc., etc., and I’m tickled to watch The Husband get into the Unleashed Potential phase of a craft.

Hard to explain, but with the yarn, I can look at it and think, “Oh, this could be a hat/scarf/sexy ribbed sweater/first lace project/whatever.” Knitters accumulate a stash of yarn because each skein, as Yarn Harlot says, is the stuff of dreams. Each skein represents a future. Each skein is pure potential. Unlimited possibilities.

Sewing is similar, although I find it hard to envision myself having the same Need to Accumulate a Stash with fabric that I do with the yarn, but I won’t completely dismiss the idea.

Anyhow, I’m enjoying watching him create. We spent a good part of a rainy Sunday afternoon camped out in the living room, me playing with wool and him playing with cotton. Cozy. Domestic.

I can deal with that.

My Husband’s father passed away this weekend, and I will be taking a break from the blog for the next several days. Yes, in Real Life right now It IS Furious Balancing.

I’m about 10 inches into the body of the Tempting Sweater. Here it is hanging out on my back steps this morning:

And a closeup of the ribbing. Well, it’s ALL ribbing, but here’s a close up anyway:

Have I mentioned lately how much I love this yarn? I love this yarn. I have a deep-seated fondness and regard for Malabrigo (worsted and chunky both; I haven’t done anything yet with lace weight). I know Koigu addicts and those afflicted with the Noro-Virus, but Malabrigo is my drug yarn of choice.

I do have one small quibble with it — it smells like vinegar. I think that when they kettle dye the wool, they use something vinegar-smelling as a color fixative. I’m sure the Eucalan will take the smell out, but the salad-y smell gets overpowering at times.

I went ahead and cast on the second sleeve of the navy blue turtleneck. The navy yarn is a machine washable wool/acrylic blend — and it’s fairly soft — but I do have to say that after working with the Malabrigo the past few weeks has spoiled me rotten. This navy yarn feels like sandpaper in comparison.

In other knitting-related news, I am now in the triple digits on the Ravelry waiting list. Number 893 to be exact. I found out the other day that I was ahead of Franklin on the Ravelry list, which I found hard to believe.

Another tidbit of “found information” was my discovery that espresso steamers (in coffee houses) are an excellent way to straighten out the plastic cables on circular needles.  I knew that heat would get the kinks out of them, but I’ve just used hot tap water.  Terri took in some circs to Sweetwaters and they indulged her whim.

To balance out all these knitting blog posts, here’s a LOLCat for your consideration:

Unfortunately, my Caturday is going to involve errand-running in preparation for The Husband’s trip to Chicago for work-related training. I’m taking a few days off next week myself, and I need to stock up on Twinkies and aerosol cheese.

I discovered the information on Wendy’s web site today about the 2008 Red Scarf Project. This was a charity knitting event I wanted to participate in last year, but didn’t hear about it until a few days before the deadline for mailing in your scarves. In any event, I intend to send in a scarf this year. Various reasons, the first among them is that it’s very, very cool to send handknit scarves to college kids. Another reason is that I’ll be winding up the Tempting sweater soon and will need another knitting project. And yet another reason is that I needed an excuse to buy yarn. “Oooooo….an online knitting event, but I don’t have the appropriate yarn! Twist my arm, why don’t you?”

So, I’m off to buy yarn! Toodles!

[Edit -- Swish Superwash from Knitpicks.com in "Fired Brick"]

For those of us who suffer from Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder, August is — for me — the emotional equivalent of February. Let’s see if I can describe it: You’ve been snowed in at the cabin for two months.  It’s still snowing and the sky is a uniform slate gray color.  You’re down to your last can of Spaghettio’s with Sliced Franks. You’ve developed a disturbing facial tic. All you can get on the shotty cable service is The Weather Channel and Mexican soap operas — the un-funny ones. The taxidermied moose head on the wall is beginning to talk to you, and you have urges to clean your guns. You don’t own any guns. At night, the ice weasels come.

Now, if I think about it, there are several nice things about August:

• It’s not July.
• The Fall issue of Interweave Knits (with a nice 20-point type face announcement on the cover about “Knits to Chase the Chill”).
• Back-to-School sales. There’s nothing that gets my Office Supply Geek going like back-to-school sales, especially since I don’t have to worry about any of that back-to-school stuff. I also have that end-of-summer schadenfreude thing down pat. “Your summer vacation is over? The angels weep for you…”

Things are getting better all the time.