Halloween blast from the past.

Happy Halloween, Kiddies!

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.

By the Power of Greyskull!!!!

I just got my October Rockin Sock Club package. That is all.

And For My Next Trick...

I will juggle three charts while decreasing the gussett and balancing a pyramid of 40 filled champagne glasses on my head. At least that's what it feels like. I really must be a crazy, because I'm loving it. I am not loving the semi-crappy camera action, however. It seems you can choose some focus, or some color, but you may not have both at once.


So I didn't get to work on this very much yesterday due to a headache. I can't imagine doing this with a headache. Later I went to watch the Happygoth's husband and his group ring bells at St. Lukes' Episcopal church downtown. They have a huge bell tower with 10 bells, and after the ringers from England showed up they got all 10 bells going. It was absolutely amazing. I really didn't know anything about change ringing before I met them, but I find it fascinating to watch everyone working together to produce these complex patterns of bell music. The local group rang a quarter peal on 5 bells, which is over 1000 changes rung without error, before the Brits arrived. It was quite moving.

The only problem that afternoon occurred when the husband was explaining something fascinating about the bells to my left while to my right Happygoth was talking to one of the British ringers' wives about knitting change ringing methods in cables. My brain felt like a wishbone being pulled apart trying desperately to listen to both conversations at the same time.

On a totally unrelated note, is Kaffe Fassett just going to be everywhere Wednesday or what? I got emails from 3 different shops that he and Brandon Mabley are going to be there, and I'm wondering if I just show up at all three wearing the thankgodihaveaknittingmachine stripe wrap and glaring at them, do you think they'll get creeped out and think I'm stalking them and set security on me?

Hell, it's worth a try.

The chicken oracle speaks. Or maybe boks.

First, I would like to thank everyone who sent in their guesses as to what I broke right before blogger broke. No one guessed, and that was probably due to my lack of information. It really could have been anything! So I took all the names of folks who sent me a guess, assigned them mystical symbols and went out to the chicken. I then spread some feed out and watched the chicken eat until she got bored and scooted off. Then, in the feed appeared a symbol which closely resembled the symbol corresponding to ... Jen! Congratulations, you get a skein of Raven Series STR as soon as it's available!

Sadly, this was not the strangest thing I have done this week. Prior to this I managed to break my toe by using someone elses' steel toe boot. That is the thing that topped off my weekend. And in this picture? The color is actually pretty accurate as of 2 days ago.

Now you see the similarity to the Raven Series colorway. Lots of black blue and purple. My whole foot started getting blue grayish. Fun!!! Now it's much better although I'm still staying off it as much as possible. And while I'm off it, I'm knitting. I finished Jareds' Hemlock Ring Blanket . It was an extremely satisfying knit, and I am in love with the finished throw. Excuse the crappy picture, hey, I'll get more creative when I'm not having to hobble around like a one legged turkey.

And in a total fit of startitis, I cast on these. Yesterday. I can't stop knitting them.

Bird Foot socks by Robyn Gallimore. You can get the pattern of kit from Red Bird Knits. Yes, Canadian, but worth the wait. And, as you see, my foot is much better. Now I have to go and knit some more on the Bird Foot. So I will leave you with one last picture.

Yep, a one legged turkey. (that rear leg is cut off at the knee. She hyperextends the stump and bends her good knee to walk. we call her hobblegobble)

Broken.

Well, as you can see here, I really did manage to break the blog. In true gonzo blogging style I started to screw with the template only to find that there had been some upgrade or another to the platform and would I kindly download or convert or whatever and copies would be saved and life would become simpler, and I thought, "Shiny!" and proceeded. I was never prompted to do the promised saving, and before I knew it, the old template was gone into the ether. Next time I go all Bruce Campbell with the keyboard, somebody stop me. So now I'm all "Yo, she-bitch! Let's go!" at Blogger, and I'm cutting and pasting from old saved (HA!) files and every freakin time I try to preview, it is giving me errors.

So now we're all plain. And chainsaws aren't helping. Poo.

In other broken news, my camera is spontaneously unbreaking and rebreaking in a completely random and puzzling way, but I am not getting the camera replaced anytime soon due to the impending date with my dentist who going to give me more gold than most rappers display. The reason? As gentle readers of this blog know, my job is a teensy bit stressful from time to time, and apparently I am grinding my teeth a bit. And maybe shattering them. A little. Ah, well, it goes with the whole broken theme, eh? Good thing I handle stress well.

Which leads me to offer kudos to Fleegle, who opened up a can of whoop-ass on her broken shawl and totally owned it. I admire that blend of talent, creativity and courage and I really look up to her and the other experienced knitters out there who lead by such magnificent example when times get tough and patterns get stubborn. Go look at her amazing shawl.

So I got the camera working for another minute and snapped a picture of my last broken thing. Then when I went to upload it, Blogger tells me its.........BROKEN! Ha! This calls for a contest. Guess what the picture was going to be of, and win a skein of the new Raven Series STR! Yes, that's right, you'll have to wait until November for your prize if you win, but I couldn't think of anything more appropriate considering how similar the colors are between the yarn and the broken thing. So, who's up for it? Email your guesses to me at chickengoddessatmindspringdotcom (you know how that works) before midnight EDT on Friday, October 19, 2007 and the cats can pick the winner from the correct guesses. And then we all wait till November. Oh, well, my contest is a little broken, too.

10-16-07 Edited to add:
Template fixed!

Look Into My Eyes; You are Feeling Very Sleepy

Very soon, the only voice you will hear is mine. You will be very relaxed and feel happy. Nothing can hurt you, you are safe. Just follow my voice. Very good.

Now you will be open to everything I have to say about bees. There will be no memories of childhood trauma or confusion with wasps to cloud you from the growing feeling of affection you are already starting to feel for bees. There is no fear. Only the sound of my voice. You are safe, calm and relaxed. Good.

Bees are wonderful, they are industrious, they make honey and beeswax, pollinate flowers, trees and shrubs and provide many other hive products that science is still discovering uses for. They are a very rewarding hobby and can induce a calm state of relaxed focus for those who work with them. And they are equally necessary for the health of the agricultural industry and the health of your backyard.

Now the impact of a hobby beekeeper on the ag industry is nearly nil, but as years have gone by and disease, pest problems, predators and chemical contamination have nearly decimated the wild honeybee population, the home beekeeper makes a positive contribution to the smaller ecosystem and gets lots in return. So lets talk a little about a hive, since you are beginning to feel like you really want one and want to know all about it. That's right. Happy friendly bee house. Yes, you are doing very well.

"Hive" is a word that can stand for 2 things, either the mass of the bees themselves, or the system of boxes they are kept in. Lets talk about the boxes. First, you find that beekeeping can be a woodworking project as assembly is required (unless you pay a much higher price) for almost all the hive parts. But that's ok, because with basic skills and hand tools, you soon are feeling really satisfied with yourself for building beautiful boxes and frames. You are now feeling like an artist, and decide to paint the outside of your hive boxes with pretty light colors (especially if you live in the south) and maybe some designs so your friends, the bees, will have a pretty home. You find a good place to set up your hive where your friends will have a little protection from extremes of weather and where you will be able to have access to all sides of the house when you visit your bee friends. Friendly bees. Good, good.

But where are our friends, you ask? You can get bees from several different sources, and sometimes they will mail you a 2 or 3 pound box of bees. Poor mailman! He will not understand as you do that bees are good, that the sound they are making is a good sound, a happy sound. He doesn't understand, as you do, that the bees like to crawl on the screen sides of the box, so it only looks like the box is crammed full of bees. He will not understand why you want a box of bees, but you should be nice to the mailman, because he doesn't know how to be happy like you do. Calm and happy. Then you put them in their house and they fly and visit flowers and make honey and wax and you are very, very happy with your bees. You are doing very well.

Now that we all love bees and want some, it is time to start building their house and reading bee books and looking for other bee-friendly people who live nearby and to start gathering equipment. Because not only are bees good and friendly, they are smart and can protect themselves quite well on their own. This thought does not scare you, and you are feeling good. Now because you are smart and understand this, you will always wear your protective equipment to be sure there are no unfortunate mistakes on behalf of your friends. Just as you should not run or jump down a set of stairs because you might get hurt, you should not approach your friends without protection. Even if you see other people do this and allow the bees to sting them, you will show your bees more respect and dress for the occasion. Poor bees die when they sting , and you don't want your friends to meet that end! So you will feel confident if you know you are protecting them by learning to visit them safely. You are doing so very well. And you are feeling really good about bees. You have no fear, you want to learn more. When I count to three I want you to wake. You will feel refreshed and calm, and you will want to learn more about bees and beekeeping. You have done very well.

1, 2, 3!

http://www.amazon.com/First-Lessons-Beekeeping-Keith-Delaplane/dp/0915698129/ref=sr_1_2/103-5814755-4535056?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191764418&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Langstroths-Hive-Honey-Bee-Classic-Beekeepers/dp/0486433846/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-5814755-4535056?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191764239&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/ABC-Xyz-Bee-Culture-Encyclopedia/dp/0936028017

http://www.dadant.com/

http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/

http://www.gobeekeeping.com/

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?