The love you take is equal to the love you make

I think the other eggs seem a little taken aback; what do you think?

I'm glad I did this, but I am also glad it's done. Happy Thingaday all around.

Now get back to work.

all work and no play makes Homer something something

14 hour work day! Still came home and knitted most of an egg cozy. Guilt is powerful.

Will finish tomorrow.

Also, my life is pretty lonely these days, but I am happy to report that my cat still loves me. Just look at the way he cuddles!

Taking responsibility

I spent the better part of this evening with a good friend crafting and chatting. We're thinking of setting up regular "lumpy crafting" evenings, which is something I find wonderful.

During conversation, one of the things that came up was our mutual frustration with people who do not do what they are going to do. Seriously, people, if you say you are going to do something, just do it. It is not so hard. If you are not going to do something, don't say you will do it. It's okay. I'd rather you made no promises than promises you can't keep.

Given that context, I am pleased to announce that I completed the scarf I was working on! Just as I had hoped, though barely inside of the month limitation. I've even sewn in the ends! So it's really, really finished! Score.

Excahuse me waitair...

... zis croissant, he is a bit petit, non?

I can't believe it took me this long to knit a croissant. Still trying to decide if I should have that guy I live with come up with a french face for it.

I was hot, and I was hungry.

Actually, I was tired and feeling lazy, and there were some trying moments today that demanded chocolate, and this only took twenty minutes if you also count the time I spent consuming the resulting product.

However, I still think there is something vaguely revelatory about the knowledge that you can make s'mores in a toaster oven even though I don't particularly like s'mores.

I know, I know, strange but true--they're just too sweet for my tastes.

Despite that, tonight was a s'more night:


Man, how many pictures are there of oatmeal in my entries?

Maybe it is a found object thing

I really like making collages. Something about putting together other people's stuff in another way appeals to me. It started in the way back era of the mix tape, I would make a collage for a cassette cover. I still do, sometimes, with CDs I make . I have tried doing similar things with photoshop, but it just isn't the same. Maybe it's just an excuse to play with glue. I don't know.

Anyway, i saw this ugly box while my sister was around. It was a dollar. It needed buying, and fixing. So far, I've done about half. The grapefruit on top makes me happier than you can believe.The other thing I like about collaging? Sometimes you find pictures like this:
I just need to figure out what to do with it. Awesomeness.

Yes, duh, you should totally post the recipe

Also I think I'm getting hands like my mom's were. It's a knobbly knuckle or thin papery skin thing. It was almost weird, taking a picture like this. I am quite pleased, after the fact, to note that my finger nails are not really dirty. How lucky!

To make room for the tuna!

I made chocolate Guinness cupcakes! And cream cheese frosting!

With those two forces combined (that will happen in the morning before work) I figure that I can take over the world.

Okay, jeez:
cake stuff:
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
2 cups ap flour
1 tsp baking soda
Pinch fine salt
1 bottle stout
1 stick butter, melted
1 big glorp vanilla extract
3 eggs
3/4 cup sour cream or yogurt or whatever substitute you have on hand

frosting stuff:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup heavy cream
a pound or so of confectioners' sugar (I find the texture of this stuff unsettling)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Prep your muffin tins as per your preference. I usually do the little baking cups because I am lazy.

Mix everything in the cake list up to the salt together in one bowl. In a bigger bowl, mix the stout, melted butter, and vanilla, beat in the eggs, and mix in the sour cream. The liquid will look extremely unappetizing right up until the time you get the sour cream mixed in. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, don't overmix because, you know, it's cake, and we don't want it to be tough, because that's nasty.

Fill your muffin tins. I found that a 1/4 cup scoop did pretty well for this, but I wasn't real precise about it or anything. Bake for about 12 minutes, turn your pans around, bake another 12 minutes. The cake is pretty moist, so you'll want to let them cool in the pan so they don't go awry.

For the icing, beat the softened cream cheese until it goes all fluffy. Beat in the heavy cream until the combo cheese/cream mixture goes all fluffy. Beat in the sugar (you may want to add more or less, depending upon how you like it) until the cheese/cream/sugar combo is fluffy.

It's a pretty lightweight icing, so definitely wait until the cupcakes cool before frosting, because that stuff will totally melt. Although, for the record, it is still quite tasty melted.

I need a second opinion!

Is this length good, or should I give it a few more inches?
My first inclination is to go a little longer, but perhaps that's just because I am masochistic with my crafting.

p.s. dig the pjs, yo.

practicality on a Sunday night

I go through socks something fierce. It is to be expected, I figure, but it means I end up with a lot of holey heels. Mostly, these socks linger for an appalling amount of time in my sock drawer before finally getting thrown out. But every once in a while, I'll darn up a pair. I like doing it, there is something satisfying about the process of mending, but the end result is bittersweet.

I can never really wear these mended socks the way I wore the originals. The repairs make my sensitive feet more tender, rub in my clogs in weird ways. They are good enough for around the house, but they will never really be the same again. Strangely, this makes me want to decorate them more, to festoon them into something supremely unpractical. I'd probably stop short of lace around the cuffs, but I'd seriously consider just about anything else. An embroidered Taj Mahal on the instep? Well, that's a bit above my skill level, but not out of the question.

Just fixing the heels is enough for today, though.

I really need to put GIMP on this machine

These jpeg compression nasties are completely unacceptable.
So, naturally, today's thing (does it count as crafty if it just involved flipping bits? Here's hoping yes, as it did take a fair chunk of time to get it just so) has a story behind it.

Current social situation in my life? Complicated would be putting it nicely. But I am trying to figure out how to deal with that while minimizing collateral damage. So I was trying to figure out how best to communicate to people around me about the particular hazards associated with being around me at this moment in time. This was what I came up with. I think it works!

It's amateurish, but still a tempting idea as a t-shirt. Or, you know, a tattoo. On my tongue. So everyone knows precisely what they are in for when they talk to me.

(Perhaps I should add something about staying back by at least 100 feet.)

*sigh*

These awful photographs completely fail to communicate how awesome this is

OH HOLY SMOKES, PEOPLE, I MADE A DRESS!

Check it out now (the funk soul brother):

front,

and kinda the back, but mostly a chair in my apartment.

It turns out it is really hard to take pictures of your own back!

To make the straps, I took the extra material, marked off a strip 2.5 inches wide, and then folded that in half and sewed up the edge, then turned that inside out to make the seam. Pinned those in place using my bra straps as a guide (and can I just reiterate how difficult it is to pin yourself into something you are wearing, particularly if you are using your non-dominant hand?), and then sewed those in place, then trimmed off the excess.

I am doing such a ridiculous happy dance right now, it's silly.

Normally I would never do this...

I am not one for key accessories. I do not decorate my doorknobs, why should I ornament my key ring? This, however, had to be an exception...
It's surly and shrinky!

Apparently those self portraits got so frustrating that I have a new default thing.

ALMOST TWO LEGS LONG!!

You know what is great about making scarves? If you aren't being fancy, you don't even have to count anything. Just go until it's about as wide as you want, turn around go back the other way, over and over until it is done.

Brain seems to greatly appreciate the associated opportunity to think about something else.

Yes, rachel, I got your present. Squee!

Shrinky dinks for the win, and the return of the thingaday! They work very well in my toaster oven. I am particularly pleased with face on the bacon with the eggs and toast, sadly too small for the camera to capture. Political Opus for my raucus caucus sweetie. Can you believe he never shrunky dunk?

Breaking in the new couch

Oh Em Gee is it totally way more comfortable to crochet on the new couch than it was on the futon!

Even the cat endorses it!

I cooked dinner!

Since you guys declared it is not cheating and it is the first meal I have cooked in , wow, I guess a week now, I am noting for the record that I made dinner! Chicken and green things with pasta in ugly sauce, to be sure, but at least I am mobile. Maybe tomorrow I will see if the fever burned the knit purl from my brain or if not-muscle memory makes my fingers still work.

no, I am not sharing my recipe for ugly sauce.

Some people have dreams of flying.

I have three recurring dream themes that are kind of pseudo-nightmarish. They are, in order of most to least frequently experienced: zombies, my mother, and unexpected discovery of neglected/dying pets. I had the latter last night--in my dream I went into the basement (which itself was sort of a hybrid of the basement in Nashville and the basement in Brookfield) and there were these goldfish in a mason jar with barely any water left, clearly gasping, sickly, and when I tried to fill the jar with fresh water, it overflowed before I could stop it and the fish slipped out of the container, swimming along a narrow, water-filled crack in the cement floor, clearly doomed.

Still, that was much better than the dream I had with the half-starved puppies, or the rabbits that were so hungry they started eating each other.

I have to say, though, on balance, I wish I had dreams of flying or falling or going to school naked.

...and it was with those thoughts in mind that I drew this picture.


It's not half bad in terms of proportion and general shape considering that I was just making it up as I went along. Plus, you know, crayons.

Tired. Default. Thing.

Grarrrgh. Sleep. In under wire. 11 more days.

Time limits are for suckers.

As I was working on today's craft thing, I realized that, by way of a general approach to life, I am not totally awesome at paying attention to arbitrary recommendations about how much time I ought to be spending on things. Take, for example, thingaday. Now, I have spent way more than 20 minutes on stuff basically every day. Today was especially awesome, with my efforts clocking in at about 3.5 hours worth of crafting. Likewise with exercise--recommendations from doctors usually end up in the 30-60 minutes per day neighborhood. I train for marathons, which means hours and hours of running at a stretch, plus I lift weights three times a week. I work well over my allotted 40 hours per week. I don't come even close to getting 8 hours of sleep a night.

But here's the thing: I feel great. I make my deadlines, I don't feel unusually stressed out or tired, and I like it that I have intuitively grasped the concept that the rules people make up for how we should all comport ourselves need not prevent me from enjoying myself.

Anyway!

Today I took a $2 XXL t-shirt and turned it into a little dress by following this tutorial. I haven't yet put on the straps because, after 3.5 hours, I was done working on it for the day.


Interesting things to note:

• sewing stretchy cotton fabric is not nearly as difficult as I was led to believe
• there is a lot of thread in the seam that attaches the sleeve of a t-shirt to the torso of that t-shirt
• it is really hard to pin up something for yourself while wearing it when you have no help

Here's what I am thinking: the combination of this turn-t-shirt-into-dress technology and the bleach stencil technology could easily be combined into some kind of super hyper awesomeness.