toys are good food

It doesn’t seem like I’ve been knitting at all lately. Work is… well, work and it robs all the good hours of my day. But I have been knitting, a bit.

I’ve finished another ball of yarn on my niece’s poncho (no pic, sorry), which is definitely progress. And I’ve knit up some scarves and things to sell at a local bazaar. (Again, no pix. My bad.) Mostly, though, I’ve sewn in the ends and did finishing work. I haven’t heard yet if anything of mine sold, but I’m not too worried. If it sells, great – yarn money. If it doesn’t, even better – completed holiday gifts. It’s all good.

I did, however, get one little FO done. It’s a pink wristband with a darker pink ribbon. A gaggle of us gals from SnB are planning to participate in the Race (er, walk) for the Cure. As something more to bind us together, we’ll all wear hand-knitted wristbands.

You can thank Photoshop for that tough background!

As for the knitting details? The wristband pattern is from the Stitch ‘n Bitch book, and we found an awareness ribbon chart online (here is one, I can’t find the other now).

I didn’t carry my two yarn (Lion Brand CottonEase) colors together like the pattern said, and I made the larger size. Since wristbands should be a *little* snug, it’s too big and I plan to make another. Besides, I want to try out the other ribbon chart and add a third color. I’m also not v. happy about the seaming and may try it on circs next time.

It’s been a busy camp ’round these parts, but worth every bit. This past weekend, we decided that Jimmie (that’s the Civic Hybrid’s name… for now) needed to stretch his legs, or tires (or whatever would be relative to the car’s anatomy). And since we’ve had a visit to another new boy on our To-Do list, it just seemed perfect to do them together.

A few hours later and we were visiting with this handsome, young man. (Okay, so this really isn’t the best pic of baby Jackson, but it makes me laugh.) JT was one day away from 3 months and is already a big boy. He laughs and smiles and is an all over awesome tyke. We like Jackson. And his folks are purty kewl, too.

Now we’re just waiting for Ramona and it’ll be a grand ol’ time!

After a fun day out, here are some pix of the new car.

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Can you guess? Huh, huh? Y’all are a smart bunch, I’m certain you can figure this out.

Yep – we got a new car!

The quick n’ dirty: it’s a 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid. Yep, you heard/read right – hybrid. Gas and electric working together in harmony for Mom Earth. Trying to make up for so many damn Hummers and SUVs. That, and it’s sweet.

We’ll post more details tomorrow and a pic, or two. Tonight? Well, I’m just too tired. It’s been a long day, and I want to get some sleep so that I can wake up excited ’bout the new car again. (It doesn’t have to make sense to make me happy.)

The passing of August also means that I am one year closer to the grave. Sure, people try to cover up this fact with cake and presents, but it doesn’t fool me.

Unless — some of the gifts are PEZ. And I’ll be honest… Alot of the gifts were PEZ.

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Amazing stories of fiber glory!

Tales of actual labor!

And a cat that’s well enough to hate you and your blog reading ways!

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Well, I’ve gone and done it now! Yep, I’ve started a new blog.

Let me reassure you dear readers, this uppity little blog won’t take the place of ‘toys’. It’s a just a side distraction; a fling, if you will. It doesn’t mean anything. I love you.

I launched pOnchO-a-gOgO as a place for me and my knittin’ friends to post about our current poncho projects. It’s a group site and coincides with a nice poncho knit-a-long (KAL).

Bonez was amazing with the help and we knocked it out of the common Blogger slump and gave it some class; some pizzazz! Besides a hoot, this new blog will give me and my gal pals a better chance to play in the blog pond. (Not so much with the HTML, but sometimes you need floaties first.)

Haven’t you always wanted to be “hand-cancelled”? Did you ever think why that hadn’t gotten around to putting YOU on a stamp yet? (They shouldn’t have to wait till you’re dead to realize your brilliance, do they? I mean, you amaze yourself all the time.)

Well wait no more. You can realize your importance right now and share it with others! Put yourself on a stamp. PhotoStamps will take (nearly) any photo image and make them into real stamps. That the post office will really use. Amazing, no?

This is an awesome site and idea. What a great way to personalize your holiday cards, party announcements, and what not. This beats the pants off of those customized address labels any day! And they’d make great gifts for family and friends.

The ideas are limitless. (Well, okay. There is a limit. But not the point.) Hmmm – it could almost be like trading cards. Collect cancelled postage of your friends, or your friends’ pets. Oh, the joy.

Do you see that? That. The pile of what looks to be brightly colored spaghetti. That is 11 unfriendly rows of my poncho.

There were some incidents with an unhappy stitch marker and one dropped stitch (unrelated to the stitch marker). Eleven rows back, spirally down the path. Usually I don’t have major issues with frogging an item, but when it’s knit the round (circular needles) it seems to be a bit more of a hassle.

So I ripped. And now it’s time to begin knitting again. In fact, apparently I’m passed due. There are a couple of folks that have started ponchos after me and have completed them. I guess I’m a slow poke knitter.