Happy Super Bowl Sunday. This is the day at our house that is second in food consumption to Thanksgiving. I'm trying to be good and not overdo it. Since January 1st of this year I have been eating responsibly and exercising everyday and have lost nearly 20 pounds so far. I was motivated by the level of disgust I was feeling about myself and I am pretty sure it showed. For me not eating well and not exercising breeds depression and health issues that are completely avoidable just by taking care of myself and focusing on me and I intend to do that.

I guess I should have told you...

...one of the two readers of my blog, that I was boarding it up for the winter and going away. I actually didn't realize it myself until...well everyday that I would sit down to write something and just feel completely uninspired. Days would pass where there were tons of things happening worthy of writing.


Another main reason for no blogging was that since about Thanksgiving I was caring for Baby Olive who became very ill with an agressive form of mammary cancer. I finally had to let her go this past January and it was so hard. She was 13 years old and we had her since she was tiny.

I finally finished the wedding gift afghan that I was working on. The pattern was a huge granny square and I actually liked the way it turned out. I would do that one again and maybe even for myself. I didn't take any pictures of it because I couldn't risk laying it out and having pet hair on it. Picking that stuff off is tedious and it doesn't always want to release itself from acrylic in the wash. I'm sure you have the mental capacity to imagine what a giant granny square must look like.

Carlin and I FINALLY bought a sewing machine. It's a Singer, a very basic model. We love it and have wanted one for a really long time. It was a really weird scene when Carlin and I were in the store buying it. Both of us had anxiety attacks and became slightly ill feeling. We aren't sure if that was the pricetag as much as it was that we have been pining for one for so long and that everything that we had talked about making with it was immediately forgotten. Oh the pressure! We have recovered and regained our creativity levels.
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Funny bumper sticker/emblem thingy of the day:

*Photo courtesy of: Carlin

Teetering on the brink...

I have nothing to show you. No progress made on ANYTHING.

Why you ask? A week ago last Wednesday I had a bit of a mishap. I took one of my patented ankle turning falls. It's where you are walking like a normal, almost coordinated person and then all of a sudden your ankle gives way from under you and you fall (usually, but not always because of uneven pavement or something challenging like that). Not a nice compact sort of a fall (if there is such a thing) but a sprawled out, you've injured every inch of your body kind of fall. I have done this about 20 times in my life and my ankle and the ligaments that surround it are permanently weakened, which is why it continues to happen. This time though I decided to do my hand in, too. I landed on it on some raised brick, hard. My palm and my thumb were completely purple and swollen. So swollen that I couldn't move my thumb and hand at all. It turned out that I dislocated my thumb. Yes, ouch. I was going to take a picture of it for the blog but it was too horrifying and I just couldn't do it. Suffice to say my bruised and battered body is on the road to recovery. I have noticed though that the older you get the longer the healing process takes.

I’m finding that I have barely enough time to update my own blog when everybody and their mother has one that I read. Don’t get me wrong, I do like having one. I feel like I have actually accomplished something that I never could in the pre-internet days. I never had enough discipline to keep a hand written journal for any length of time. Not sure why that was. Everyone I knew had one and you know what a bandwagon jumper I am.

Carlin started high school earlier this month and she seems to be taking it in stride, so far. She told me one of the stranger parts of it is actually being in a class where some of the boys are actually sporting beards and mustaches. I guess that would be weird when you’ve come from middle school and most of the boys still have their baby teeth and barely come up to your waist.

Over the summer I started taking public transportation to my dad’s office, where I work a couple of times a week. I have to say that I love not having to always be a slave to my car and spending so much on gas. It takes me an additional 20-30 minutes but I spend it knitting or crocheting. I love a situation that allows for multi-tasking. It makes me feel so efficient. Plus, Al Gore would be so proud of me.

I was recently inspired by a West Hollywood SnB member to make a few scarves for people that have been sent by “El Diablo” to needlessly fight in Iraq. This was big for me because I always felt that if I were to do something charitable like that for the troops, it would make it look like I was a supporter of the decision to send them there and I couldn’t be more diametrically opposed to that. I have recently realized that because of some media sources that are actually “fair and balanced”, many if not most of the people being sent over there don’t actually agree with the choice and would really rather not be in Iraq away from their lives here.

Photos of stuff to come.

Oh, and if you are a MOTT…Happy New Year!

It's hug a huge squishy cat Tuesday!

This is one of our huge squishy cats, Baby Olive.

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Boy... have I had a heck of a time with trying to knit or crochet this summer. We over here at the Davis Household do not have air conditioning and it's been too #^%&*@# hot! However, I do have one project to show. My dad's birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and i'm knitting him a wool scarf, I may even finish! Not like he will be able to use it here in sunny Los Angeles anytime soon, but hey, it's the thought that counts. Right?

I'm knitting it in a 1x1 rib out of Patons Classic Merino in Denim.

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Why is that Kate Pierson from the B52's? No silly...it's Carlin at the hair salon. They had to use the "special" Marge Simpson hair dryer for girls with Marge Simpson hair.

August has been a blur.

Long time no blog updates. Lately, I have really only felt like reading other blogs and not participating in my own. I have been knitting more then crocheting as of late but I can't post any pictures of the recent projects because they are holiday presents. Ugh, the holiday's...I'd have to say that is the suckiest thing about this hobby, the fact that if you are a holiday gift maker then you have to actually acknowledge holiday existence this early in the year and those of you that know me already know how much I hate the holiday season. Turns out it's almost as much as I hate birthdays. I managed to almost completely ignore mine this time around, which I think means I can say i'm still the same age again this year. Bonus! It's a rule I read somewhere. Really. I swear.
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Have you seen these guys? This is totally impressive and I wanted to include it. Have your sound up a bit. It's so cool.

melted.

The cooler weather, albeit lovely, has come too late. I have already melted.

I'm still around, just don't feel too much like blogging these days. I think the heat has burned and seared the lobes in my brain responsible for kindness, patience and all things knitting and crocheted.



The main purpose of this particular blog entry was to wish my friend Tevana a happy belated birthday! I didn't forget and I hope it was great!

I love them. I hate them.

My socks. I want to cry. I made some sort of unfixable mistake and I had to take them apart. Not to mention that my gauge was too tight and they wouldn't have even fit a Barbie. I'm so friggin' obsessed by making them it actually keeps me awake during the day. That's NOT right. I tried making them with bigger needles to account for their small size and they started coming out too holey. Do I increase evenly instead for the larger size? They are just a basic ribbed sock, nothing fancy.

Validation.

It's really great when someone loves and appreciates what you make for them. I made this for my nephew Evan before he was born a little over a year ago (just look at him now! :-). He would like a bigger blanket for when the weather gets cooler. I say he deserves it!

Progression.

My sock. Yipee. Kinda wonky, ask me if I care. Clearly I need some practice but this will be my first pair. It took about 20 restarts to get to this point and there is NO WAY in hell i'm starting over, again. These socks may have brought out my OCD-ness more then ever. Letting go now of some unrealistic (for me) ideal of what a perfect sock should look like. Must move forward.

Not my socks.

Carlin made these (for her dad) out of Koigu and I am so impressed.

I have also been trying to make socks but it turns out that I apparently have eight extra thumbs I wasn't aware of. I have literally started and restarted my sock no less then 15 times.
I have $%^&$# it up in ways you probably have never seen. Yet still I crave making them and I am still trying.

Quick, someone lend me a baby!

or better yet, if you have a baby laying around give this a try and be sure to report back!

Look Ma..I'm not ALL thumbs!

Awhile back I had bought some Wool of the Andes from Knit Picks and had planned to crochet a bag to felt. I had started it and decided that it was taking way too much yarn, so I frogged it. I'm not sure what happened, but about a week ago I had this idea that I was going to knit it instead. For those of you that know me you probably remember many of my failed attempts with the knitting process. It was just something I never thought I really enjoyed, until now. It's weird, like a 'knitting lightbulb' finally went on in my head. So far it's relaxing and I can actually say that i'm loving it. Wow.

Here is a picture of the bag progress thus far. No pattern for it. Just tailoring it to my wants and needs. We'll see how it goes.

An AMAZINGLY useful skill...

I was mezmerized.

"I think i'm turning Japanese, I think i'm turning Japanese, I really think so..."

I asked for advice and opinions on crocheted bookmarks and then I disappeared from blogland. I did end up making some for mothers day out of a bulky Red Heart Yarn with gigantic flowers crocheted to them. KIDDING. I actually made book thongs out of a size 10 thread with a hook that was so small I could have removed a splinter from my finger with it. Oy.

I got the initial pattern for it from Crochet Me and took some creative license. They were super fast, worked up in way less then an hour, easy and pretty darn fun. A nice brainless, not too thinky project. The cool thing was that I only had to buy the thread for it, everything else I already possessed.

Can you say i-n-e-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e... I love that.

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For Mother's Day Carlin created one of her Amigurumi for me. So cute. She is a bleached blonde, bubblegum snapping, japanese pop star. I just love her. She reminds me of those japanese girls that dance backup for Gwen Stefani.

Continuing the Japanese theme....(try and have sound for this) So sweet.

WTF?

You've undoubtedly heard of the blogs "You Knit What?" and "What Not To Crochet". Both of which I think are very humorous and useful. Along those lines I'm thinking of starting a new blog (as an aside to this one) called :

"You Made Your Poor Defenseless Pet Wear What?"

Here is my very first official unofficial entry.



Comments about this puppy's dilemma can be directed to KAREN

"Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl..."

Happy Hump Day.

It seems like many of my favorite people have officially or unofficially taken their blogs on hiatus. You know who you are. Just about every morning I plant myself in front of the computer with a huge steaming bowl o' joe in anticipation of combing through the many blogs I read (some are listed to the right and some are not)
When the posts aren't new it totally bums me out dude.

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I need your opinion, please feel free to comment at will.

Are crocheted bookmarks lame? I know they can be, but are there exceptions?

(If I ever ask this question of doilies feel free to just kill me.)

Mother's Day is coming. Personally, I love Mother's Day. It's the one day of the year when my child makes an actual attempt at being nice to me ;-)

Enjoy the clip it's a classic (and for the love of...have your sound up!)

Please Note: This IS actual pictoral proof that my brain has finally exploded.

Stress sucks.

Things should be calming down though. We finally got Carlin's acceptance letter for the Magnet High School that she applied to...but not before representatives from said school came to her current school and freaked she and her high acheiving friends out by telling them that there were only 90 spaces available to the entire gifted student population of the LAUSD and that chances were somewhat slim that any of them would be getting in. Great. Thanks for making my kid even MORE panic stricken. You know the old saying "shit rolls downhill" I'm smack dab at the bottom of that hill.

Chocolate Bobbles is almost due and progressing...slowly. Ugh, I just want that thing to be done.

Finally got a very preliminary phase one version of the Baby Intelligence Agency Ebay store open for business. The button is to the right if you feel like visiting. Currently, we are only offering Brainy Baby DVDs but as a search for more product continues that will change. We also have plans for much bigger and better things off of Ebay. Although this is all very exciting it is also a major source of stress for me right now.

I just have to remember to breathe and crochet of course!

Shameless promotion and other blathering.

The daughter has started a blog that ties in with her Etsy Shop. Please visit if you have a few spare moments. Carlin's Kisses.

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I'm still working on the chocolate bobble-licious afghan. I'm dragging my feet with it. Let's just say it isn't the most fun thing to work on. It's actually downright boring. It's so large and cumbersome, because i'm desperately trying to keep it pet hair free that it's become a chore. It's definitely no longer portable so I have had to start some other peripheral projects that can be toted around.

I started the "Cupcake" top for Carlin. It's a cute little top from the Happy Hooker book. The only other person that I know that could wear it is Clare. Cap sleeves are not for everyone. Like Tevana says,"Just because they make it in your size doesn't mean you should wear it."

I've also made a couple of pairs of Moroccan slippers, from Fabulous and Flirty Crochet. They were super easy and hopefully make great Mother's Day gifts. Hopefully.

Speaking of Tevana, congratulations on the new job, I don't know what it is but it has to be better then the dreck you were slogging to before. Can't wait to hear about it and how you left "The Fund".

I want one of these...(not the guy, I have one.) (not even the dog really, I have two.) but I still think it's great...



Have a fabulous day!