Lori’s Painting

This is a picture my older sister painted for me for my birthday many years ago:

Sadly, she gave up painting, and this might be the last one she ever completed. Mind you, nothing in particular happened to make her give it up, just life in general. I'm hopeful that one day when her children are older, she'll pick it back up.

I’ve always liked this painting. It’s like a snapshot of what she thought of me at the time: I’m at the top of my castle tower, workin’ my mojo in the sky, surrounded by flower gardens and sailing ships. There are some other telling details you can’t see in this scan: the sun has a smiley face she created by texturing the paint, the tops of the towers and the doors to the outer curtain wall are painted in gold, and those doors are guarded by two Ewoks (yes, Star Wars Ewoks).

The ringed planet visible inside the atmosphere at the upper left was a standard inclusion in her works, whether drawn or painted, serving almost as a second signature. I always marveled at her ability to paint skies, etc., as this is something I do not have the skill for. I do okay with miniatures, but creating my own compositions and putting them to canvas just intimidates the crap out of me, which is another reason I think it’s sad that my sister doesn’t paint anymore.

Note that she didn’t have any pictures of castles or sailing ships to work from, so she approximated both. The internet and World Wide Web barely existed at the time: this was 1989, after all, and getting to a web site, any web site, was a two step process involving dialing a phone number. Heavens to CrapCat, now I've done the math on how long it's been. Yikes.

Also note that the sails on the sailing ship are backwards. I teased her about that, of course, and ultimately we decided the ship was simply in reverse and backing out of the harbor. Didn’t know sailing ships had reverse, did you? Argh, matey: let’s back’er up and head fer the pub!

Badass Geek Button

Okay, so I follow an increasing number of blogs that I find interesting. One of them, the Badass Geek, has a contest going on for Badass Geek pins, and I want one. So, what would I do for a Badass Geek Pin? I’d:

-Post images of the completely useless data I collect for no reason at work (no, work does not require me to collect this data: I’m just a nerd):

and the color-coded charts that go with it:

-Post a scan of my handwritten notes for reverse-engineering a pair of baby booties I knitted without a pattern. A glimpse at the handwriting and mad scientist (okay, mad knit-ist) style of note-taking will leave no question as to why this is embarrassing:

-Re-post a pic of my worst cake fail:

-Post pics of my desk, in all its chaotic glory:

Old desk, with CloudSheep:

New desk, with commentary:

-Post a screen shot of my top 25 most played iTunes songs:

Note that #24 is the ending song “Still Alive” by Valve from the Portal game, which I went out of my way to locate and add to my iTunes. “We do what we must because we can.” PS The cake is not a lie, it just wouldn't come out of the pan.

Okay, none of these are likely to land me a cool Badass Geek button, but it was worth a shot :-D

Irony: I think I'm doing it right

CrapCat has a new home!

My Hubby got us matching desks, so now CrapCat has a shelf to sit on, which he shares with the sheep.

The big sheep is the one previously pictured on my desk with the cloudy ending; the other two are gifts I received for Christmas: the one with the little basket has a strap intended to keep scissors handy, the other is a tape measure. Naturally, CrapCat and his small flock don’t take up the entire shelf, so featured behind him are the foam shuriken and the books and software I use most often. Between him and the flock are my “Toadily Handmade” stamp I haven’t had the chance to use yet and the Frankenstein Monster of aircraft, pieced together from the few bits of Tente blocks my Hubby found amongst his ever-growing collection of Legos.

We’re not sure where the hand came from, but Thing is hanging on for dear life. And yes, that is the Mini Ninjas game next to the foam shuriken behind CrapCat. Is that so wrong?

Lost at Sea

Well CrapCat has reminded me that it's been while since I was able to post or even read my email or the blogs I follow, due to working a lot of overtime and catching up at home as a result. However, I've nearly completed another project, so stay tuned and bear with me and I'll try to make it worth the wait :-)

Meanwhile, here's a random pic of the castle blanket I crocheted with a cute kitten named Jet and his friend, whom I think is a stuffed pokemon:

Holiday Dish Rag

I just finished this holiday dish rag:

If it looks a bit wobbly, it's not yet been washed and blocked. It's knit in seed stitch with a garter stitch border, using Hobby Lobby's I Love This Cotton #16 Buttercup Print.

I'd been looking at this color for quite some time before I finally purchased it. It reminds me of eggnog and holiday green and red but I wasn't originally sure I liked it. Having knitted with it, it's very soft, as are all the I Love This Cotton products, and continues to look festive and remind me of eggnog now that it's knitted up.

Making the rag took a bit over half of one of the 2 skeins I purchased, so I will probably end up with 3 dish rags, or maybe a tea cozy. I haven't decided. Maybe I'll ask CrapCat.

CrapCat

Earlier today, my Hubby was teasing me about a pattern I found because the colors are a bit drab (I won’t go into detail, but he said it looked moldy, and I can't necessarily disagree). Generally, when I show him things, I turn my monitor so he can see the image. Having given up trying to convince him that the colors could be changed, I was returning my monitor to its normal position when CrapCat tumbled off like a Humpty Dumpty wannabe. When I picked him up, he had two size 00 DPN’s sticking out of his head. Ignoring the obvious statement that makes about the condition of my desk, I re-positioned the DPN’s and here is the result:

You can't see them in this photo, but to CrapCat’s left are his new buddies: a Lego Jedi-Wizard and his Owl familiar that my Hubby pieced together from several sets the children decimated long ago:

My Hubby is a Lego fan, so now that the children don’t play with them anymore, he’s put all the sets together so he can build something. Not sure what yet, but I’m not complaining since the same can be said of my yarn stash.

Halloween Cookies - Late

So we're a week into November and I finally got the Halloween cookies made:

 

 

All the kids were at their grandmothers' so I managed to get the cookies iced before they were all eaten. Well, except the other two cauldron cookies - someone has to do quality testing, after all.

Meanwhile, it was beautiful outside this morning, despite the cloud cover, so I got these two pictures of my front yard:

 

Normally I'm not big into the color orange, but it was really pretty, and I was quite pleased to have captured this year's fall colors before they disappeared. The time when the trees are colorful is very short: they go almost directly from full and green to brown and bare. It makes one wonder how I managed the autumn leaf cookies earlier this year:

 

A friend told me I done pretty good for a southern gal. Oh well, now that the cookies are made (and, no doubt, soon to be eaten), back to the dragon dice bag. If it comes out right, I may have to knit CrapCat a new hat.

Continued Adventures of CrapCat

CrapCat is still perched atop my computer monitor, overlooking the stuff on my desk (CrapDesk, if you will).  Currently, he sports what was supposed to be a dragon-skin dicebag, complete with tail.  Said dicebag is not turning out quite as planned so I put it on the cat:

Here is that which he oversees:

Messy, huh? Objects you see include a d20 approximately 3" in diameter; foam shuriken (next to the d20); the remains of the brown yarn from which CrapCat was made; a flashlight, generally used to locate dpn's that have rolled under my desk; a pen/pencil cup; a pretty box hiding many miscellaneous (mostly useless) objects; a toy rolling pin; my sharpies and some software. Oh, and a sheep, who from this angle appears to end in a small cloud. I'll leave that a mystery.

I post the picture of my desk because I have recently seen (in other people's blogs) pictures of desks well-organized and neat, desks organized with interesting and useful things, desks that invite one to sit and create. Unfortunately, my desk does not fit into that category. And yet, it is the very process of creating things, repairing things, etc., that repeatedly brings my desk into its current state. Funny, my desk at work does not look like this: at work, I am very organized. Apparently I leave my organizational skills in my desk drawer at work when I come home. Fortunately, I can still locate poo-brown yarn and needles so I can make a CrapCat on demand.

CrapCat

Well, the stackable cat is cute, but perhaps knitting him in brown wasn't the best idea. He had the unfortunate effect of reminding my children of poop: you've heard the expression, poop a brick; well apparently I've knitted a poop brick. He's still cute, but my older daughter has dubbed him CrapCat. Here he is, atop our Halloween candle tree, which is surrounded at the base by small rubber mice. My Hubby found it amusing to think a cat had been run up a tree by mice.

Now that Halloween is over, he sits atop my computer monitor, where he balances oddly well, despite listing slightly to port.

Stackable Cats

Currently, I'm working on this adorable pattern, which my Hubby was kind enough to purchase for me after alerting me to its very cute existence.

This little kitty knitted up very easily. I didn't even do a test swatch or read the needle sizes, and simply grabbled needles appropriate to the yarn I used, which is a dark brown worsted-weight, possibly wool yarn from the Yarn Booty. The yarn label is uncharacteristically missing, but I think it's from Patton's.

The instructions are pretty easy and mostly clear, though there are a couple of spots that might give a beginner some trouble. The pattern does contain a link to a tutorial on their website for the stitched used to sew the kitty together, which is handy, and any other trouble spots are easily figured out: certainly none should be a deal-killer: this cutie is well worth the $5.00 for the pattern. Personally, I'm thinking of knitting 3 of the small ones for my office so I can juggle them when someone walks in without a smile....