Picasso and the bag

I thought I was making this Cascade Pastaza bag for myself. I like the contrast of the strap against the body, don’t you?

I am told by Picasso that I am sadly mistaken. This bag is not for me, and he has no idea what gave me the impression that it was.

He has taken to hugging and sleeping and snuggling with the bag. I do not know why, and baba doesn’t know what the big deal is, but I do know that Picasso’s love is true and his claws are entrenched.

He would prefer that I ceded control of it to him, I imagine. Given I am merely the catstaff. The catstaff with a mysterious, entrancing, and neverending wool buffet.

A napping Picasso is the cutest thing ever. Even if I sort of need the bag to keep knitting at it.

Saturdays are for book signings and yarn

Wendy Knits! There was a book signing scheduled for this afternoon at Knit Happens. Would I go? Was there ever any question of that? This was the third of three birthday knit books. Woohoo!

Sign me up! And with green ink yet, perfect for May’s Project Spectrum. Wonder what the significance of green ink was? I didn’t ask. I should.

What is this?, you ask. Doesn’t she have enough yarn?, you think. It’s not fair she has a cooler stash than I do when she’s been knitting for so little time, thinks Verde. (hee)

Actually this wasn’t a yarn shop accident. Or if it was, it was the best kind: free!

I think every knitter’s dream is to walk to a yarn shop and be told they have store credit! MmmmMMMmmmMMMmmm store credit. Just possibly the only thing better than yarn yarn yarn molest molest molest yarn yarn. Remember that sock class that never materialized? That’s okay. Look at that bowl of yarn!

That is a grey-blue-aqua Lorna’s Laces.

The large aqua thingie is a couple skeins of the new Ella Rae classic yarn, which was priced lower than Cascade 220 and is supposed to work just as well. It had a nice hand to it, although its color palette was quite different from 220’s.

Koigu! Because um, just because I’ve not yet made any of my Koigu socks doesn’t mean that I don’t need really really pretty Koigu. This one is blues, aquas, purples, pinks, and whatever else.
That bright pink blob? Cherry Tree Hill supersock in (gasp!) pink. Shocking hot bright pink. Yum! I’m thinking something fancy, with twisted stitches or cables or lace, to use this yarn to advantage.

The grey blobs you’re seeing here and there in the pictures are Rowan 4 ply soft, for the Hedera socks from Knitty. KH didn’t have a great selection of colors, and it was a tossup between these and brown. I did think heavily about getting brown, but let’s just say that no matter which color I got, I was going to sort of feel like I should have gotten the other color. Which is just another way of saying that Rowan 4 ply soft (which really is yummy) in brown? Will probably accidentally join my yarn family at some point.

Hey, this is the metro platform at Rhode Island Ave. This was taken today. Look carefully. What’s wrong with the platform? I, personally, can’t believe I never noticed it until today. And no, it’s not that weird black blob.

Of Catchen and Fraros

Poor Matisse. I made the mistake of noticing this new thingie on his gum and I ruined his life. A black spot on his gum! A new one! Eeeeek! It’s a huge bump! Nobody knew what that was, or if it was okay, or if it was the harbinger of the giant fur-eating monster. It’s not possible to be overdramatic when it’s your own catchen, yes?

So I took him to the vet. But first, I stuffed him in a rolling backpack (he is too big for all of my carriers, especially if you’re trying to walk around with his flooftastic self), he got out, I stuffed him back in, it was the Wild! Animate! Backpack! I laughed a laugh of nervousness, uncomfortableness, and just plain feeling bad for doing that to my cat.

But he settled into the I Am the World’s Saddest Matisse role quite quickly. There he is, in the above picture, in a half open backpack on top of a newspaper dispenser thingmabob, as we waited for the bus to come. You might be wondering (or not) just why I would take a bus with a cat, instead of a cab. The reason is simple. It just so happens that the vet’s office is door-to-door from my apartment, on several bus routes. No waiting for a cab (which can take forever, especially if they make you tell them you have a cat with you), no exhorbiant cab fare, and hey, door to door. This does require a relatively inanimate bag, and Matisse fulfilled this part of the bargain rather well.

We sat at the vet’s office, where everyone cooed and remarked on How Giant That Cat Is. Matisse sat quietly in my arms, furring my jacket so bad it ended up being mostly Matisse, and crammed his big head into my elbow. He was such a good boy! And of course, was the bump a bad awful thing? Apparently ragdoll cat’s gums can turn black later in life. OY. Well now I know for next time. And he has rabies shots. And he’s indeed giant, being 15.5 pounds. And I am a lot poorer.

Matisse, in his best catchenal fashion, says in this picture: “I was a good boy. You gave me your jacket to drool on. Can we go home now?”

And thus ends an expensive if relatively (and happily!) anticlimatic day.

Blech

No pictures, no ability to work, no knitting, no food, nothing anywhere in my digestive tract.

That kind of a day.

On the bright side, Kahlo was super-nice to me when I got home last night, again this morning, and even when I got home early in a miasma of grodyness.

Back when I remember how to be human.

Wednesdays are for Wish Lists

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Kahlo, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

She already has a Kahlo, you’re thinking. Why is this picture in this post, other than the oo! cat! pretty! factor?

It’s because I wish Kahlo would make up her mind.

Is she ILikeYou Kahlo, insatiably attached to me, rubbing all over my legs every possible moment, parking herself under my chin, mrrphing and making weird squeaky noises as I hold her in my arms, skritch her neck, rub her head until she purrrrrrs?

Or is she IHateYou Kahlo, swatting my hand with a clawed paw if I invade her terrority (it’s not a territory at this point, catstaff, I TERROR you and the zone around me is my TERRORity. Get with the program), resulting in manymanymanymanymanymany and did I say? manymanymanymany itchy itchy scratches? I so love it when I need something that happens to be in close proximity to her, like the remote control or a needle, and it becomes a battle of the scratches. Kahlo: 14, hapless stupid terrorfied catstaff: 0.

This morning I woke up to ILOVESYOUCATSTAFF Kahlo, who was lolling all over my feet and loving on them and many other things I really wanted to know as little as possible about.

What will I come home to?

Tuesdays are for Self Portraits

A girl and her human.

Cascade Pastaza

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Still Life: Cascade Pastaza, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

Today is another faceplanty day. Of a rather bad sort, since I overslept and woke up at precisely the time I was supposed to be at work. That’s painful. I did show up a hour later, and then I worked through my “break” and managed to be caught up on my tutorial time enough that I could leave early. That’s quite exciting. I think.

It’s the time of the year when students are in the panicky glomtastic state of I AM IN DANGER OF FAILING AND YOU WILL BE MY SAVIOR AT THE END OF OUR FIFTY MINUTES!

I love it! Except not really.

Finals time, ooh lala. Two more weeks of work, and I’m all done here. That sounds exciting, except for the faceplanting.

O! Cascade Pastaza. I started the bag last night, if by “started” you mean “sleepily cast on 39 stitches because I hate casting on at work”. And then I knit the base during the day today, a row here, a row there, lots of rows on the Metro, and finished the base, so I could excitingly pick up stitches! Now I’m all in the round.

Pattern? It’s sort of a commingling of the basic Booga bag rectangle shape, except I’m doing it with 39 stitches of width and 39 rows of length. And then that of course gives me 39×20x39×20 for a total of ooh! 118 stitches all the way around. Now, because I want to do something different this time, I will be making it unshaped, just a simple rectangle, with the two lighter colors on the bottom and the darker color on top. No stripedyness. And then? Using my Heidi pattern as a reference, I am going to make a strap for it that goes all the way around the bottom of the bag, for more stability, an added design element, and just, you know, SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

I’m really loving the Pastaza. It’s a single ply, AKA the ultimate in Happy Knitting, and it’s incredibly soft. It’s not as rustic as Manos, but it’s got just enough unevenness in its spin that I’m enjoying it!

SockapalOOOzed!

I’m all done! I’m all done! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. They fit me, and seem to have plenty of ease to fit my sockpal, who has slightly larger fit than I do.

Here you can see the colors in more natural lighting.

Wheeeee. Now? I’m deathly curious what my socks are like! Not long yet to wait…

Saturdays are for SockapalOOOza!

This was my progress as of this morning. Were baba and Matisse impressed? no, they were not.

I, however was impressed by the sheer amount of knittage I got done today… up to just about the toe decreases. Anyone who knits socks knows that’s a crazy amount to get done in one day. But I’m glad because the sooner done the sooner I get to do other things! Not that I don’t want to make Sockapaloooza socks… oh never mind. You know what I meant.

Fridays are for Being a Lemming

Or not. Actually, I saw Chris’s blog and thought, HEY! I can do that! Apologies in advance for the crappy quality of pictures, I only have Benkei the Sidekick here with me at work.

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Photo 314.jpg, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

Here’s the full shot.

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Photo 317.jpg, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

And a couple of closeups.

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Photo 316.jpg, originally uploaded by Frarochvia.

I like how different my cursive is compared to my print.

In other news, I’m mildly depressed that yet again someone thought I was hearing. Today’s entrant said that she’d told her husband that she was amazed that I had such perfect ASL, better than she did, and she was a third generation deaf person. You know, since I was hearing and all. Except not. This sort of thing happens all the time and I’m sick of it, because 1) deaf people do not, by law, dress differently from hearing people 2) deaf people do not, by law, act differently in a highly identifiable way and 3) deaf people do knit.

Reason number squintillion-million why this job? I will not miss.