The Lady "bug"

So I think I just realized that some sort of career involving computers or electronics makes the most sense for me. I think it all started when I was about 8 years old...

I bought a toy that was a big plastic ladybug that you hide (or keep in plain sight) in a room. The ladybug came with a walkie talkie handset speaker and inside the ladybug was a microphone. So basically this cute little "toy" was a concealed listening device. You'd think that would be a silly thing to market towards children, what with their first idea being to put it in their parents room to hear what presents they're getting for Christmas weeks in advance.

But here was the catch; the ladybug made a constant churping sound so that if you did try to bug someone they could hear it, find it, and just turn it off. I guess this was considered the "safety precaution" so as to keep kids from hearing their parents', teachers', or siblings' dirty secrets. This naturally pissed me off, so having no idea what I was doing, I opened up the ladybug with a screwdriver and I fiddled with the inner wiring until the internal "chirp" speaker stopped working. Viola! My genius little mind couldn't figure out multiplication but it sure had a knack for electronics at an early age. I had created a silent and concealed listening device. Man I used that thing for years to spy on people. Which I eventually found out was not as cool as you'd think. Finding out about your surprise birthday party and x-mas presents weeks in advance ruins the fun and takes the spice out of life.

I still have that ladybug though. Right now I'm devising new grown-up ways to use this to my advantage because no one suspects an innocent toy ladybug...

ladawnasaur

pagne's boss being eaten by a dinosaur

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Girl fishing monster

Can anyone tell me who painted this? I can't read the signature and I really want to get a copy of this painting but I can't find any info about it anywhere on the interwebbys.

Muthafuckin' Knitting: Ravelympics '08 - Day 16

I did it! I finished all my projects for the Ravelympics and just in time too. Today I finished the Nintendo DS Sock and like an idiot I BO so tightly you can't get the DS into the sock without hurting your hands trying to stretch it open. Epic fail if I do say so myself, which funny enough I nominated myself for the Best Epic Fail award for Team Lazy Stupid and Godless. I also nominated myself for the Most Lazy Project as well since it only took me 2 days to knit it out of the 17 that the Ravelympics goes on for.

And lastly, the piece-de-resistance-carpe'-c'est-la-vie-diem-je-ne-c'est-quoi....Devin's Thug Life Knucks in their complete form. This was my very first attempt at embroidery. Devin loves them so much I don't think he'll ever take them off. He'll probably even sleep in them.

On the down side he keeps shoving his fists in my face and yelling "THUG LIFE!".


So now that the Ravelympics are over I think I'm going to take a break from knitting for like a month (I've never knitted this much before, it's tiring for a fat chick to be so productive) while I read the 10 books I bought last month, starting with HHGG: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. *satisfied sigh*

My birthday!

It was my 24th birthday on August 17th, also the day of Bob Saget's Comedy Central Roast, coincidence? I think not. We had a 70's themed bowling party. It was awesome. My mom made me bell bottoms. I got the fabric at Joann and it's corduroy! Eeee! I got the shirt at Kohl's if you can believe it.

Muthafuckin' Knitting: Ravelympics '08 - Day 15

I did it! I finished Devin's Knitty Knuck gloves for Team Guild of Calamitous Intent! I haven't embroidered "Thug Life" on them yet, mainly because I don't know how to embroider, but I knitted the gloves. I even finished and blocked them. Now I'm just awaiting my Ravelympics medal and badge.

(They kind of look like they're made of chain mail)

Oh and here's the best part about the gloves, they actually fit Devin too. It's crazy I know! I probably wouldn't have gotten these done if I hadn't done some of the knitting at my friend Kelly's birthday party. There we were in the heart of one of the many ASU Bro's drinking holes, Four Peaks Brewery. There were many jokes about what a geek I looked like knitting at a college bar surrounded by hip college people. Now I'm only 24 so technically I'm of that age, but I can't stand those people. Not college people in general but Arizona college people, they're fucking dickheads. Date-raping, Natty-Ice drinking, "Let's shower together but hate gays cause we're definately not homos" kind of guys. Pagne on the other hand said I was the coolest person she knew for knitting at a bar during Happy Hour and told Devin how he was the luckiest guy on earth for having me as a girlfriend. I wasn't the geekiest person at that bar though, Devin was doing some Vampire the Masqerade LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) on his fucking cell phone while I was knitting.

So now with only 2 days left in the Ravelympics I've begun work on my second project for Team Lazy Stupid & Godless. It's a Nintendo DS lite cozy.

Now this pattern confused the shit out of me at first. It's done in double knitting but it doesn't actually tell you that in the pattern. For someone like me who has never even heard of double knitting before I could not for the life of me figure out how this ends up being a sock at all without there being any directions to indicate folding it in half and sewing up the sides, like you normally would for a cozy. That's because there is no seams because you're actually knitting both sides of the sock at the same time, that's what double knitting means. If you knit this exactly as the pattern says (*k1, bring the yarn forward, s1 purlwise, bring the yarn back, repeat from *) it will turn into a sock, no joke. Here's how it works; the knitted stitches are one side of the cozy and the purlwise slipped stitches are the other side of the cozy. After you a few rows you'll notice that your knitting is really thick, that's because you've knitted two sides at once and if you can stick your needle into the inside you'll notice that it's all hollow! It's voodoo shit I swear.

(in the second picture you can see what I mean by hollow in the middle cause I pulled the two halves apart so you could see that it's a pouch.)

I know from the pictures it looks like I knitted these in the round because I'm using circulars, but this pattern is not knitted in the round. It's done on two straight needles. I just use my Knitpicks circulars for everything I knit, because they're so awesome.

If you're like me you have ADD and love brownies just a little too much. Despite the the brownie part, ADD makes knitting hard as fuck. I can't even do something as simple as k1, slip1 purlwise without fucking it up unless my door is closed, there is no music and no tv. This makes knitting really boring if you have nothing else going on so naturally I put the tv on as background noise and at some point I fucked up my knitting. I ended up purling one of those slip1 purlwise stitches. It just came naturally to me to purl a stitch which I put my needle purlwise into. Don't do this when you're double knitting a sock. The point of this pattern if to keep the inside hollow so you can slip your Nintendo DS into it, if you purl a stitch you end up knitting the two sides of the cozy together. Imagine sewing the middle of a sock closed, that's what purling in this pattern does. Luckily my friend Sara got me Knit Fix for my birthday last week! This book is fucking awesome and if you suck like me you should definatley get it. I was already half way done with my sock when I realized I purled it together in two places, normally this would mean I would have to frog it and start all over. Fuck that, I ripped this whole thing open down to the stitches I fucked up and then used a crochet hook to put it all back together. It's in the book, go buy it if you don't know what I mean. I fixed it and now I'm back to work on it. I used a really horribly scratchy yarn but I don't think the DS will mind. If it does mind I'll be famous for having the world's first self aware DS.

Muthafuckin' Knitting: Ravelympics '08 - Day 1

The Ravelympics/Olympics started today around 5am my time. I of course slept in and missed the Ravelry Opening Ceremonies. Keeping with the theme of my Ravelympics team "The Guild of Calamitous Intent", I thought it only appropriate to skulk (in the only way you can on the internet, read everyone's posts for a few minutes and then passive-aggressively say to myself how everyone was going down but never actually post it) my way into the opening ceremonies thread hours after everyone already had posted they had started knitting, and said something along the lines of "You'll rue the day..." etc., etc. "...muahahahaha!".

(My Ravelry avatar for showing team spirit)

Even though I was already hours behind everyone I still took the time to read all my emails, apply to some job postings, check my Stumbles and then the second I finally got all my knitting shit put together in my basket and sat down to cast on my first stitch someone knocked at the door. Why look, it's our dear friend "Dirty John"!

(Yes, that's a cross bow)

John works as a locksmith and when he's between calls when he's in Scottsdale he comes by, pees in our backyard, plays with the dogs, knocks on all the windows until someone wakes up, drinks all our koolaid, and then falls asleep on the couch until he gets another call to unlock a car. Anyways, he was here for about an hour and everytime he talked I would get distracted, rip out the knitting I'd done and have to start over. I have wicked ADD sometimes so it's hard for me to do anything else while I'm knitting. Sometimes I have trouble paying attention to anything when I'm doing nothing, like staring blankly at a wall. Staring into the void takes alot of concentration for me apparen....Hey look a hole, I wonder what's inside of it!

Aaaaand just for fun, a picture of me being terrified of snow. Just because it's funny.

Oh crap the Ravelympics, right. Ok so far I've gotten all one, two, three, four, five, yes FIVE fingers for Devin's glove completed. Oddly enough I think I may actually finish these long before the 17 days are up.

(These are both a picture of the same thing, I can never get lighting right.)

When I'm done with these I'll be knitting a Nintendo DS cozy for another Ravelympics team, "Lazy, Stupid, and Godless". Until next ti....OOOOH A KITTY!

Muthafuckin' Knitting: Making Stitch Markers

I recently figured out what stitch markers are for and now I can't live without them. I've been using them heavily on my lace Invisibility Shawl.

A few weeks ago I Stumbled a page on how to make your own stitch markers. So I ran out to Jo-Ann Fabrics and I bought all the stuff needed to make my own. In hindsight I probably should have bought beads that were more colorful since I'm using them mainly on a piece of work that's all white but oh well, I think they're uber pretty anyways!

I made them just as the instructions said. I got all the stuff needed in the Jewelry making section of the store. These little necklace clasps called "Toggles" which I used only half of the clasp (the circle part that will go on my needles). Then I bought some pretty beads, some bead wire, and a little set of jewelry pliars. Lemme tell you though, my hands hurt like crazy from trying to manuever the wire with little baby pliars. While a fairly easy process, making these things was a pain in the ass. What should've taken me maybe 15 minutes ended up taking me over an hour. Did it through the entire season finale of Robin Hood on BBCamerica. All-in-all it was worth it though.