Coming off Anaesthesia

So the 5 teeth turned into 6 at some point, I have a mouth so full of temporary crowns the dentist just made whole side panels instead of individual teeth and it took an extra half day to do it all.

My toe doesn't hurt at all any more, isn't that strange?

I just keep taking naps punctuated by leaving smartass comments on some of my friends blogs. and eating ibuprofen like I hate my liver or something. So I decided this time I woke up I was coherent enough (at least my internal monologue is, if I talk I still sound like "the Spleen") to post a little. First, here is a picture that rather beautifully sums up my Sunday knitting at Knitch.


Picture courtesy of the Happy Goth who has a camera that actually works. She and I went to Target sunday morning and loaded up on halloween candy for all the knitters. If I had known it was Nells' birthday I would have gotten her a card at least or maybe her own bag of chocolate monster bodyparts. Anyway, we has a great turnout even considering how many folks were off at SAFF having yarn buying crises. Many of the Sunday crew who showed up had day-tripped SAFF and Doug let us drool over his acquisitions as he put the last few finishing touches to his fantastic sweater. I drank beer, ate chocolate and finished the first Bird Foot sock.

So now it is Tuesday, I have lost 2 precious days of my life to my crazed dentist and I am taking internet quizzes, which is the next step in coming off the anaesthetic, right after the tingly discomfort and inappropriate blog commenting phase.

Which'>http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=11856N">Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in with? (pics) created with

Did you know that ALL the tests I take that place me in a sci-fi world put me in the Firefly category? Or crew me to Serenity? Or generally categorize me as a browncoat? I suppose its not really any stranger than being a poultry god.

My Own Personal Oktoberfest of Knitting. And Beer.

Hi! My job is trying to kill me!
Thank you.

In other news, my camera is dead, dead, dead, so Janes' contest didn't happen for me and my Ravelry notebook is fast filling up with blank projects, but that's ok because I have no time to knit and blog, because my job is trying to kill me!
Ahem.

It must be time to screw with my template. Yeah, that's it! So I expect that at times you'll see things appearing and disappearing from the sidebar, and possibly crash my whole blog. Because it is October and beer will be involved.

On the photo free knitting front, I have started and gotten about halfway through the dead easy but really pretty Hemlock Ring Blanket from brooklyntweed that I started in the car last weekend, and this weekend is slated for finishing my MS3, which got stuck somewhere around Clue 6 and never regained momentum. I have socks half done at every turn which are going to get finished and have mates before October is through. I have a clapotis to frog, too, the last tiny bit of the Dark Mark scarf to finish and pieces and parts of other projects which are cutting loose and starting to drift around the house. So October is about finishing. Hmm, maybe November will be like a festival of casting on. Who knows.

Meanwhile, I have been on my fall color yarn buying binge which is beginning to lose steam as more and more of my favorite indie dyers update yet fail to wow me in their usual way. I even see people introducing what I would really consider to be spring colorways! Now! October! Isn't there something in Emily Post about no easter colored yarns after Labor Day? There should be a law, man.

I have also been on a German lace pattern procurement binge. I know this is the first time many of you are hearing about this, but it has been going on for a while now, and I have amassed a fair few books full of designs by a guy named Herbert Niebling. It's like crack, or maybe worse. After MS3 confirmed what I had so hoped Kiri proved, that I really can knit lace, I got a little crazy. And all this Oktoberfest of finishing stuff? It is so I can concentrate on my major projects with all my attention. Rosarie, the Starmore design, Rosendal, a Dale, and Lyra, a Niebling that I want to do before I try to tackle Steinrose. One small problem, I could only get the pattern in German, and the only other language I know beside English is Japanese. Claudia to the rescue!

Every day in the month of October, she is posting a German knitting term and its translation. How cool is that? What better timing could there be? It's like having my own little personal Oktoberfest of knitting!

So if anyone has any camera recommendations, please let me know. One more day of work to get through this week, then beer, yarn, and Sunday at Knitch. What more could I want?

Mouse and Chicken Go To Town

How does one sum up a day like yesterday? I have no idea where to start, so I guess I'll start at the beginning. I met Knotty Mouse at the Yarn Garden, one of the few shops in the area I had never previously pillaged (somehow it had totally escaped my notice) in the early afternoon and whisked her away for a no holds barred, Thelma and Louise style day of knitterly hijinks and that special sort of mass hysteria only the arrival of the Yarn Harlot could perpetrate on Atlanta. After briefly looting a sari shop, we stopped at Taj Mahal for British Cadburys, made a quick hit and run on Needle Nook and wound our way down to the heart of town to meet up with several hundred of our closest friends.

Mouse taught Chicken that fresh bread and Cadburys makes a great sandwich.
Later that evening, Chicken would teach Mouse that beer and cameras do not mix.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

After subjecting Mouse briefly to my cats and introducing her to my hen Ophelia, my husband played chauffeur and dropped us off at the corner of St. Charles and N. Highland to begin the evenings' festivities. First on the agenda was a little light queueing...

Which immediately devolved into general revelry and observance of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, wherein otherwise poised and polished women proved what scallywags they can really be.
And to our stern were some of the happiest knitters in the world, I think. They sure look it.
Before long, we were inside and I found myself happily ensconced in the Hilan Theater with a beer in one hand and a camera in the other. And there were bloggers everywhere (and the occasional pirate celebratee).

First we have Snarky who looked for a while like she was conducting a sing-a-long.
Now here we have the ever serene Claudia, and the back of Janice's head. This was the first time I have ever seen Janice in person, and I have to say that I would have felt like a total freak for shouting "I'm the Chickengoddess!" at her across about 4 or 5 rows while pointing to myself (and jumping up and down slightly) if it weren't for the beer. Oh, crap, I did that, didn't I? What you really can't see in this picture (except for her beer) is Hockeymom, who is completely psycho, and I mean that in the best way possible. Betwixt us there was much throwing of the horns and promises of stagediving, and had I not been wearing glasses I can't afford to break there would have been some headbanging too. Maybe it's a good thing we didn't try, ultimately, or we might have run into trouble with Jane (and I would have paid for yet another of my Chiropractors' kids' college educations). Speaking of Jane...
It was her birthday! And she volunteered to work! What a great and generous spirit you have!

Meanwhile, Mouse and I were joined by the sadly blogless Laura, who arrived sporting a bag every knitter should have.
She joined myself and Mouse and got me another beer, wherein I proceeded to enter the "I love you, man!" phase of the evening. While evilsciencechick and Nytefalle looked on, Jen helped by putting on her best Rhinegold Maiden pose...

And I got all soppy with the camera.

So it was undoubtedly somewhat to the relief of all the poor people sitting around me that a few minutes later Kim took the stage and then it was all about the Yarn Harlot.

And she brought her sock.

Apparently with just 2 beers in me I can no longer knit and I holler like a 20 year old redneck. Sad but true.

While Famous Steve surveyed the scene from the balcony...

we all fell under the Harlot's spell.

Deb, I am so sorry I didn't get a picture of you! I loved meeting you, and I hope we can run into each other again soon!

We met so many new friends, and saw so many amazing and talented knitters. I think it will take me at least a full week to absorb all of it. Thank you Kim, for making this happen. Without you and Knitch, I never would have met so many wonderful people, or Stephanie, who was tired but warm and gracious even through the late hours.

Thanks most of all to you, Mouse, for hanging out with me. I had a great time, and I hope you did too. I love you, man!