Fiber Frolic and stuff

Still alive! I need to work on posting on a regular basis.
In good news, I went to the Fiber Frolic down in Windsor. It was fun if hot and sunny. I managed to get a small sun burn along with my fiber. Mom was wonderful and drove down with me and carried all my fiber, she bought some stuff as well(actually I paid for it because she left her purse in the car). There were llamas, alpacas, sheep, goats, and bunnies there with all of the fibers for sale.

The vendors that were there had awesome stuff, and the makers of Merlin were there(the wheel not the tv show).

I bought fiber, from quite a few vendors. I now have fiber in colors called: Thor's Hammer, Downeast, Galaxy and the like. Though my favorite fiber was the yak and silk blend that I bought(Mom bought it for me actually but I paid).

So very pretty

All in all it was a very successful shopping trip.

In other news I signed up for the Tour de Fleece, hence the fiber buying. I am knitting my self a cowl that is hooded, Thorin's Hooded Cowl, so far I am still working on the cowl part.

Trying something, I am dyeing yarn with Kool aid, it is coming out greener then I wanted but is still a good color. I think I might over-dye it at a later date.

The dogs are enjoying the nice weather and so is Estel as now that the dogs spend time outside she gets the run of the house.

The flowers are doing well, as are the garden though the vegetable gardens are all fenced in to keep the dogs from eating everything again.

Hellebore

Rogue pansy

In other stuff: SPOILERS

Christmas or I need to sleep

Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate it, happy holiday of choice to others and happy non-holiday if there is no holiday celebrations that you have. 

All of the gift knitting was finished in time for xmas this year, however it was finished on xmas day in the morning before I went to sleep. One would think I would have learned my lesson already and not do this and wait for the last minute. This year was a bit worse then others as I had to finish Dad's gift, my brother's and wrap all three presents. My brother's gift required the most work as I went on the great button hunt on xmas eve. I visited 3 stores and managed to find decent or good parking at all of them. My brother got a fish hat with button eyes. Dad got a pair of fingerless gloves to replace his old pair that I made him way back when I was just starting to knit. Mom got her scarf.

Dad's gloves were a modification that someone else had made to the pattern to make it worked in the round, I then modified the modification to be a little longer to that Dad would get better had coverage.

Mom's scarf is thinner then the pattern usually makes but I modified it so that the scarf would be long enough.

My major xmas gifts were a bottle of sake and my spinning wheel, I really wasn't expecting anything beyond the spinning wheel.

My parents have gone even further with the tradition of decorating the tree with birds, they purchased flamingo lights for it.

Other xmas traditions that we seem to have now are going to the xmas service at the Unitarian Universalist Church and my knitting during the service. Instead of the fish dinner we had hors d'oeuvres, they were tasty.

After dinner I commenced finishing the xmas gifts while watching movies. The first movie I watched was Warhorse and that is a movie I will never ever watch again. Then I watched Thor and finished all required prep for giving the gifts. 

In which there is yarn and life

Sorry about disappearing for a little bit. Life got a little busy for a bit, there was thanksgiving, school work and life in general getting in the way, especially finals. I survived finals without going totally over the edge, by that I mean that I continued to shower. Home now, had a interesting drive as the weather wasn't the best.

For Thanksgiving my family continued the tradition of cooking food the entire day, there was stuffing, turkey, potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, two pies, and I made popovers.  Popovers are a wonderful food.

After I got back to school, M and I decorated for xmas. We hung lights in both of our rooms and in the hallway, M then put up a small advent calendar. The lights in the hallway looked really good.

Since the semester is over I will be getting off of the caffeine  that means I will now be drinking no coffee or any tea with caffeine in it for an entire week. Life is much less enjoyable with caffeine withdrawal.

In knitting news, I finished Grandma's present and mailed it to her, Mom's scarf has had all the ends finally sewn in, the blanket thing I am making is in the second skien. Merlin and I have be producing some decent yarns, I have a project in mind for them. I have started on Dad's present, and will hopefully finish it in time for xmas. My brother's present can resume progress no that I have gotten more yarn for it. Mom's birthday present is already taken care of.

November Day 5

Currently stressed and hating humanity in general.

No knitting progress made. I am currently very grumpy and hormones are making it worse.

I suck at updating

In the month since I last posted I have in no particular order: helped organize a small naginata seminar, driven to and from Washington DC for a naginata tournament, drove in Washington DC, watched Doctor Who, finished my mystery knitting which was my grandmother's birthday present, visited New Jersey, mostly finished Mom's xmas present, started on a present for a friend, decided on some other relatives xmas presents, spent more time on computers then is probably safe, taken lots of random pictures, grafted stitches mostly successfully, debated if I have enough time to attempt to write a book.

Naginata and related things first. On the 22 of September  I helped to lead an one day seminar/extended practice for my naginata club with a visiting sensei from our regional federation. It was fun and many people learned lots of new things. The bigger thing that happen was in October. On the weekend of October the 7th 9 members of the naginata club drove to DC to take part in a seminar, taikai, and shinsa. It took us two cars, three drivers, and ten hours to drive down. I ended up driving the entire way down in a rental vehicle due to a SNAFU situation with the transport plans. After we arrived in the early evening (yes we went on the Jersey Turnpike, no we didn't die) we went and got some food before we got to the house that we were staying at. The old captain of the team had us stay in her house and her parents were wonderful hosts. The seminar was fun and I learned lots, as did the rest of the club who went down, I hope. The taikai went well, I got third in both of the events I competed in, most of the rest of the club did really well in their events and enjoyed themselves immensely. The shinsa went pretty well, we had a range of ranks earned from 4kyu up to 2kyu. The same day as the shinsa there was also a section on bogu training, it was fun and informative. 

The HMS Toaster

The participants

After the events we went into Washington DC to go to the Smithsonian and the monuments. I went to both the Air and Space museum and the Natural history museum. Then we went to the monuments in the dark, we went to the war memorials, they were indescribable. 

On the knitting front I have gotten a fair amount done. I made a mini-Cthulhu for a gift, someone else made him a mini-naginata. I have almost finished Mom's xmas present, I just need to weave in the ends and decide if I want to put fringe on it. Also finished was my mystery knitting, aka Grandma's birthday present. It was a lace shawl in a forest green, I am pretty happy with how it turned out, even if I did spend a couple of days acting like I was crazy. Currently I am working on a gift for a friend who likes the Legend of Zelda games.

Cthulhu will get you in your sleep

Grandma and her shawl

My hat model is a lion

Apparently when I need to finish knitting something in a rush I turn to excessive watching of the Lord of the Rings movies. It's rather fun, if a little strange that I was knitting lace while watching them.

The Link hat that I made involved grafting stitches together in the band, I managed to graft them mostly correctly.

I have started to work again on the pair of gloves that I started over a year ago. Not sure why I stopped working on them at all. Wait I know why, I hate doing the fingers.

I HATE FINGERS

When I visited New Jersey it was the weekend after the naginata event, I spent most of it rushing to finish Grandma's birthday present. I did spend some time with my relatives too, just not a lot of sleep.

In Doctor Who news, I watched the last Pond episode, there was crying and funny noises involved. Baby weeping angels are terrifying, absolutely terrifying.

Also for more random things I have been taking lots of pictures of things around campus.

And the obligatory random video: