I'm friend-locking many entries henceforth, so if you want to be on my f-list, leave me a comment.

I'm here.  Really.

I've been knitting a lot.   Like, seriously.  A lot.  I'm involved in this totally geeky thing over on Ravelry.com called The Harry Potter Knit & Crochet House Cup.  It's my third 3-month "term" which makes me a "third year;" I'm incredibly invested both in knitting stuff for the assignments and helping to try to bring my House (Ravenclaw... is that just a given?) to victory.

It's a little bit coming out of the closet kind of feeling for me to talk about this.  I'm usually just a little self-conscious about it.  Cuz here I am, 42 years old, mother, homeowner, etc... and I'm wondering if I'll get my Herbology OWL finished this month.  Seriously.  And I'm working on a Muggle Studies OWL too, and I have homework due in Defense Against the Dark Arts...  I'll grant you, they are knitting projects.  But it still seems even geekier than I want to admit to being.  But the two OWLs are fabulous sweaters--the Herbology one is a knee-length, amazing, cable-knit thing that I'm going to wear every single day that it isn't 85 degrees or 25 degrees outside, because I'm simply in love with it.

In other news, my school changed hands.  I'd love to say, "Eh, doesn't matter.  Everything's just the way it was."  Except it isn't.  Some's better, some's not.  Some is incredibly frustrating.  I'm not at the "I hate to go to work" stage but I'm definitely at the "I wish I could call in sick again tomorrow" stage.  I think it will get better, or the place will go under in six months.  Yes, those are, realistically speaking, the choices.  My co-teacher moves on to grad school in the summer, which isn't the worst thing that's ever happened.  She's good in many ways but she's a lot more... forceful, I guess is the word... than I am.  And I often feel like things aren't going at all the way I want them to.  And like I'm being run over in the wake of her force.  But life goes on.  

I've been trying to get to the gym more, which is always good, and eat better, which is also always good, except for the fact that I don't do it. :)  Summer is coming, which means more time outdoors and more hikes and exercise I actually like.  Also, who wants to knit wool stuff in August? So less knitting obsession. (Cotton yarn!!! Yeah, I have a problem).

That's about it for now.  I'll probably be back once in a while. :)

Stupid steroids. I blame ARod.


X-post this to your journal if you support thirdbase getting better.

This project has been, well, much more involved than I thought it would be.  But I am delighted--it's almost done!  All the little pieces--the "Party Hats for Cats" that I created--went through the washer tonight and came out beautifully fuzzy.  The Berocco alpaca really does felt beautifully--the lady at Knit Purl said it did--and although part of me thinks maybe I should shave it, another part really loves the hairy soft look of the felted pieces.  

Once I rescued the pieces from the washer and dried them (I wrung them out and then used a towel), I used cups to shape them into, well, cup shapes.  Unfortunately four of our Ikea cups have gone missing, as sometimes happens in a house with a kid, so I did the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff cups on the Ikea ones, and the Slytherin ones on two of D's old sippy cups and two empty Mike's Hard Lemonade bottles.  Those are a little skinnier than the Ikea ones, but I think it'll all work out in the end.  The bigger Ravenclaw cups are on a couple of our big 16-ounce tumblers.

 

Okay, the rest of the pictures will be behind a cut to save your friends' page.

( Pictures of Felting )

Tomorrow I'll get the base started.  It'll probably take me a couple of days to get it finished and felted, but I have hopes of getting it in this week and bringing my O.W.L. tablecloth to 25%.

Oh, I'm going to start posting some of my knitting stuff here. I'm on Ravelry (soprano1... what a surprise there)... but there is, as far as I can tell, no way for me to share my Ravelry page with people not on Ravelry... yeah, blah blah blah.  So.  Knitting stuff will be public and I'll either post pics under an lj-cut or I'll keep 'em wicked small.

Recently I've been involved in a group on  Ravelry called the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup (HPKCHC).  Yeah, it's pretty much what it sounds like.  There are a whole lot of us, and we're divided into houses (coincidentally named Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin).  We take classes like Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Herbology... we can even sit for an O.W.L. exam.  Except that all the assignments concern fiber.  You knit or crochet or weave or spin...  Each term is 3 months, and each month you have different assignments.  Last month I completed an assignment for every class, including my Mandrake Root... isn't she cute?  She's crocheted and my own design.



This month I don't think I'll get as many assignments done.  First off, we're moving after 12 years in the same house, so we're bound to be a little overwhelmed, right?  Second, I'm working on my O.W.L. this month.  I wasn't going to do one, and then I thought, eh, why not?  And so I'm knitting a lace tablecloth.  It's going to take forever, seriously, but I'm determined to get it done by July 31, when it's due.  My "knitting" userpic is a sample of it.

Right now I'm also knitting a mancala board, which will get felted for my Transfiguration class and, well, Transfigured.  And after that I have plans to knit a Pokemon-ish doll for D's 7th birthday in July--I want it to be done before the end of the month so I can get credit, though.

So I'll be posting some information about my knitting here.  I hope it won't be too annoying. 

I'm a proud mama. Here's my boy strutting his stuff.

More good than bad.

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